--- title: Command Post: How Realistic Is a Cyberattack on Our Electrical Grid? | TIME description: How vulnerable are the U.S. water infrastructure and electrical grid to cyberattack? canonical: https://time.com/video/eVD2PAyD/ og:title: Command Post: How Realistic Is a Cyberattack on Our Electrical Grid? og:description: How vulnerable are the U.S. water infrastructure and electrical grid to cyberattack? og:url: https://time.com/video/eVD2PAyD/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/eVD2PAyD/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Command Post: How Realistic Is a Cyberattack on Our Electrical Grid? twitter:description: How vulnerable are the U.S. water infrastructure and electrical grid to cyberattack? twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/eVD2PAyD/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Command Post: How Realistic Is a Cyberattack on Our Electrical Grid? > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Command Post: How Realistic Is a Cyberattack on Our Electrical Grid? [Watch (HLS stream): Command Post: How Realistic Is a Cyberattack on Our Electrical Grid?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/eVD2PAyD.m3u8) (5:10)  _Published 2011-08-19. How vulnerable are the U.S. water infrastructure and electrical grid to cyberattack?_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:16 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [What to know about the cyberattacks targeting U.S. water systems](/video/4FuHyPr2/) ### What to know about the cyberattacks targeting U.S. water systems [President Trump Reduces Restrictions on U.S. Responding Offensively to Cyberattacks](/video/Ch90Uxh0/) ### President Trump Reduces Restrictions on U.S. Responding Offensively to Cyberattacks [How Real is the Threat of a Cyberattack?](/video/D5Y8Ll5v/) ### How Real is the Threat of a Cyberattack? --- ## Transcript This is Command Post, a series of discussion about military matters from Time and The Center for a New American Security. [ SOUND ] Jim is it right to believe that the, the real risks to the United States are not so much inside the Department of Defense, that it's relatively capable? But inside our water infrastructure our electric grid, are those the places that we should really be concerned about as a nation? It depends what you're looking at. And again, it depends on what kind of attack we're talking about. [ SOUND ] For the use of cyber- techniques equivalent to something that would be the use of force. Cyber is a weapon. It's the electrical grid. Right? Very vunerable. Easy to attack. A natural target for everybody from guerillas to the PLA. [ SOUND ] So if I think about this, if I was a foreign attacker, I'd go after the electrical grid. If you're talking about other cyber activities, it kinda breaks down. << For cybercrime, the main target is the banks and the financial system because that's where the money is. And for everything else, for cyberespionage, it's more the economic espionage that worries me, and then if there's countries that take advantage of our investment. And are indeed a promote their own competitiveness to borrow our our ideas at no cost Its gonna hurt us in the long term, and thats the real risk is right now. Are there things we can do to strengthen our electric grid against this threat? Probably not because given the political gridlock in washington, the thing we need to do is regulate, and when you say regulate alot of people scream and jump out the window, but we know from. Test after test, that companies think they're doing the right thing. They'll say my control system isn't connected to the internet, and when you actually check, there's always 20 connections. So, left to their own devices, the industry will never do enough. [ SOUND ] Sad, but true. Christian do you agree that the electric grid is our greatest point of national vulnerability in a war kinda scenario? I think the utilities are of concern. I'm less worried about the parts of our critical infrastructure. For instance, the financial infrastructure where the companies themselves have a high incentive to invest in cyber security. I am more worried like Jim and the electrical companies, the water companies, because these are companies that are already operating on razor thin margins. They are already having a hard time convincing their boards to invest what resources they have in a rather amorphous threat where the return on investment is unclear. So, I think in that circumstance, they are likely to under invest in cyber security but the problem is it has broader repercutions for all of us not just for those Companies. And so for that reason, like Jim, I agree that probably only some kind regulation is going to be, the solution. And are we gonna have to wait until we've been attacked and lost our power grid before we see that level of progress? [ SOUND ] I hope not, and I think there is some movement. I think the Department of Homeland Security is trying some initial steps to see if they can move these companies a long. A but it's a cat and mouse game. You don't know how long you can play this game before a threat comes along and even if there's progress, is it going to be fast enough? Is it going to be enough period. Call me a sckepitc or let me play devil's advocate here, I've been reading about the threat to the elctrical grid and water services grid for more than a adecade. Okay. How come at least to my way of thinking nothing's happened? How come even moderately skilled hackers haven't taken one down which might generate the sort of impetus to, to build these kind of walls? If it's not happening, why should Boards of Directors. Spend money to protect against a threat that they may not perceive. It's a fair point. And nothing has happened. But the reason it hasn't happened is because right now, it's too hard for your average hacker. Terrorist groups don't have the capabilities. [ SOUND ] There's probably about half a dozen countries in the world that could use cyber as a weapon. And then bring down electrical grids. And just not gonna start a fight with the US for fun right? They have the capability, if we get into a squabble over Taiwan or over Georgia, you might see some sort of electical grid attack. But the other guys can't do it yet. What I worry about is the day we wake up and find out Al Qaeda, or some other group like that has acquired this capability. [ SOUND ] And the we'll know it is our lights won't go on, right? So right now, the reason you haven't seen is because the only folks who can do it are, are big nation state opponents. And they can be deterred. When we switch to lower level groups, that's not gonna be the case. I think your question is completely reasonable, Juan. And boards of directors, and the boards of companies have exactly the same question. And is I sympathize with them. It is a completely reasonable question and it seem that up until the day after there is a cyber attack and then we will, we will be asking why they didn't invest and why they didn't see it coming. And we will be writing about that. Correct. [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ SOUND ] ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Command Post: How Realistic Is a Cyberattack on Our Electrical Grid?","description":"How vulnerable are the U.S. water infrastructure and electrical grid to cyberattack?","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/eVD2PAyD/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2011-08-19T17:44:18.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/eVD2PAyD.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/eVD2PAyD/","duration":"PT5M10S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/eVD2PAyD/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```