EPRI Podcast Summary
Michael Thow is Senior Technical Leader, Plant Engineering – Digital I&C, Cyber Security.
Galen Rasche is Senior Program Manager – Power Delivery & Utilization, Cyber Security
Justin Thibault is Senior Technical Leader – Generation Operations & Maintenance, Cyber Security.
Renita Crawford is an EPRI communications manager.
Chances are you've been hacked. Maybe it was your social media account, or worse, someone stole personal information and hijacked your checking account. Undoubtedly, those lessons equipped you to better protect your assets from cyber threats.
It's much the same for electric utilities, but on a larger, more rigorous scale. Even though critical safety and security systems at power plants are isolated from the internet, safeguards are needed to protect portable media and equipment from hackers and other bad actors.
Building strong, consistent defenses against new and existing cyber security threats has been a priority for the utility industry, and a focus of EPRI's research for decades. As the threats evolve, EPRI is building on previous research and collaborating across the industry to improve grid security.
"We need to look at developing cyber security measures that can be designed and implemented to protect the grid from attacks, but to also strengthen overall grid resilience against inadvertent threats, such as equipment failures and user errors," said Galen Rasche, senior program manager, EPRI Power Delivery & Utilization.