Congress sounds alarm on lax dam cybersecurity
America’s dams lack the resources to beef up their digital defenses, and the federal agency charged with oversight of the sector is understaffed and behind on performing cyber audits, experts said during a congressional hearing Wednesday.
Experts told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee that U.S. dams — which make up over 50% of private electricity generation — have not undergone cybersecurity audits by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which only has four staffers dedicated to the issue.
“I don’t want to wake up to a news report about a small town in the Pacific Northwest getting wiped out because of a cyberattack against a private dam upriver,” Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in his opening statement. While there are 91,827 dams of varying sizes in the U.S., only 2,500 are under FERC’s authority as non-federal dams with hydropower. Hydroelectric dams provide about 28% of renewable energy in the United States.
