As I was reviewing my blogs for a paper I was preparing, I found a nuclear power plant incident involving a station auxiliary transformer load tap changer (LTC) failure. Substation transformers have been acknowledged as the Achilles heel of the electric industry. As a result, the 2015 FAST (Fixing America’s Surface Transportation) Act contained a […]
Category: Electric
Targeting Control and Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS): new escalation of cyber threats to critical [energy] infrastructure
“It is no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.” – Winston Churchill Introduction Industrial Control and Safety systems play an important part in insuring that the physical processes taking place in a manufacturing plant, power generation facility or other segment of critical infrastructure do […]
Spanish Civil War 1930’s Déjà vu and today’s cyber experiments on critical infrastructure.
Had a very productive training and tabletop exercise during my Center’s organized week-long event in Kiev, Ukraine. For more info on what we did in Kiev see ( https://enseccoe.org/en/events/268/tabletop-exercise-coherent-resilience-2017-core-4/details ) (1) I will share some of the “take-aways” from this week long event which included the participation of Ukrainian government, energy sector operators and private […]
If control systems move back to analogue can we still keep our smart phones?
I have been following the discussion about the return to analogue. Both this and the Industry 4.0 movement are new to me and have put them on my “study this more” list. Recently a colleague sent me a paper, “The Case for Simplicity in Energy Infrastructure” (1) , which has captured my imagination. It very […]
Smart Technology That Isn’t So…”Smart”
During the week of July 17th, I attended and spoke at the “Business Opportunities Gateway Forum – Electrical Power and Energy” which was held in Vilnius and organized by the Society of Electrical and Electronic Engineers in Israel. I looked forward to this event for the opportunity to spend some time with engineers and talk […]
To Analog…or Not to Analog…THAT is the Question…
NOTE: At the end of this article is a URL link for a voluntary survey. Recently, there was news of a new Senate bill to develop a pilot program for the Energy Sector. Dubbed the “Securing Energy Infrastructure Act of 2016” (S. 3018), this bill is to provide for the establishment of a pilot program […]