Physical Attacks On U.S. Infrastucture Targets On the Rise

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https://www.wired.com/story/attacks-us-electrical-grid-security-roundup/

 Physical Attacks Target US Grid in At Least Four States in Three Months

When shootings at two electrical substations in North Carolina left 40,000 customers without power for days, the incident seemed like an isolated—if bizarre and troubling—case. But this week, the same utility, Duke Energy, reported gunfire at another facility, a hydroelectric power plant in South Carolina. And combined with two more incidents of hands-on sabotage of US power facilities that occurred in Oregon and Washington in October and November, the vulnerability of the US grid to old-fashioned physical harm has begun to seem like a serious threat.

No damage seems to have occurred in the South Carolina case, and in the earlier incidents in Washington, the utilities involved described the cases as “vandalism.” But the intruders in Oregon carried out a more deliberate attack, cutting through a perimeter fence and damaging equipment, according to the Oregon utility, causing a “brief” power outage in one case. And in yet another, separate collection of incidents, Duke Energy saw half a dozen “intrusions” at substations in Florida, according to documents seen by Newsnation. Federal law enforcement is investigating the cases.

The incidents are reminiscent of another strange, isolated attack on the California power grid in 2015, when a sniper fired on an electrical substation and triggered a blackout to parts of Silicon Valley along with $15 million in damage. These newer cases, while still relatively small in scale, show just how disturbingly vulnerable the American power grid remains to relatively simple forms of sabotage.