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Manny Cancel, NERC | NERC Foreign adversaries continue to hone their cyber threat strategies against the North American bulk power system, cybersecurity experts told the Midwest Reliability Organization’s (MRO) Annual Member and Board of Directors Meeting on Thursday. "The bad guys have not taken the pandemic off; they’ve seen it...

Four-star Gen. Wesley Clark retired from the Army after a 38-year career that saw him wounded as an infantry commander in Vietnam and rise to become commander of the U.S. Southern Command and the U.S. European Command. He helped write the U.S. National Military Strategy and Joint Vision 2010 for...

Chris Krebs, founding director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), was fired Tuesday night by President Trump, leaving a leadership void at an agency that has provided significant cybersecurity assistance to the utility sector since 2018. Trump announced Krebs’ departure on Twitter, saying a...

The Department of Energy’s latest assessment of transmission congestion has concluded there is no need to designate national-interest electric transmission corridors, citing the "dramatic increase" in transmission investment since 2005. But it said future assessments should address the grid’s resilience and the threats posed by cyberattacks and natural disasters. The...

Commenters generally back FERC’s proposal to approve new standards for electric transmission but urged the commission to reject two replacement rules that they said could lead to less efficient use of the grid. In July, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to approve Version 003.3 of the North American...

The clock is ticking for compliance with NERC’s cybersecurity supply chain risk management standard. After a three-month delay because of the coronavirus pandemic, CIP-013-1 took effect on Oct. 1, starting the 18-month compliance period for balancing authorities, reliability coordinators, generator owners and operators, transmission owners and operators, and some distribution...

FERC has accepted proposed revisions to seven NERC reliability standards submitted earlier this year under Project 2017-07 (Standards alignment with registration) (RD20-4). The commission on Monday also approved the 2021 business plans and budgets for NERC, the regional entities and the Western Interconnection Regional Advisory Body (WIRAB) (RR20-6). NERC CEO...

FERC last week approved a settlement between SERC Reliability and Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. (AECI) for violations of NERC reliability standards. The ERO notified the commission of the settlement, which carries a penalty of $430,000, in a Notice of Penalty (NOP) on Sept. 30 (NP20-22); FERC indicated in a notice...

The Department of Justice has brought criminal charges against six Russian military intelligence officers believed to be involved in multiple cyberattacks against targets around the world, including online assaults against the Ukrainian power grid in 2015 and 2017. The indictment last week by a grand jury in Pittsburgh named Yuriy...

FERC staff expressed confidence Thursday that the North American bulk power system has sufficient reserves to make it through the winter comfortably. But they also said utilities must be prepared for further impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic and constraints on the availability of natural gas and fuel oil. Winter 2020/2021...