More than 100 power grid attacks took place in the United States from January to August, breaking this nation's record for power-grid attacks for in one year, according to a Politico report.
The most recent attacks in North Carolina and Washington state heighten concerns from U.S. officials regarding America's infrastructure systems through the work of vandals, extremists, and cybercriminals.
Politico garnered access to federal records on the 2022 attacks, which assess that "physical and computerized assaults on the equipment that delivers electricity are at their highest level since at least 2012."
The previous peak, according to federal records, via Politico, involved 97 incidents recorded for all of 2021.
"If somebody really wanted ... to create a blackout in a certain area to achieve whatever social, cultural, political objectives, it's fairly easy to get access to that information right now — and the tools necessary to execute it are readily available," Jonathon Monken, who oversaw system resilience at PJM Interconnection, told Politico.
The recent attack in Moore County, North Carolina, where two Duke Energy substations were severely damaged by vandals, wasn't included in the federal survey of 2022 incidents.
The same is true for the Christmas incident in Washington state after four Tacoma Public Utilities and Puget Sound Energy substations were vandalized, depriving approximately 14,000 customers of electricity, according to reports.
The sudden vulnerability of U.S. power grids has the attention of federal regulators overseeing the interstate power network, Politico reported.
"Is there something more sinister going on?" Richard Glick, chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, asked reporters last week. "Are there people planning this?... I don't think anyone knows that right now. But there's no doubt that the numbers are up in terms of reported incidents."
At its December meeting, FERC announced it will "direct a key industry standards-setting body" to analyze if it should fortify regulations for protecting critical infrastructure.
However, as Politico noted, federal authorities don't have jurisdiction over local electrical substations and distribution lines — the same type of equipment that was attacked in North Carolina.
"Are we going to have armed guards at every substation, every transformer in the country, in order to make sure this doesn't happen?" FERC Commissioner Willie Phillips said this month, referring to the North Carolina attack. "Or [are these attacks] something that we can just expect more often?"
Earlier this month, Rep. Michael Burgess, R-N.C., pledged that Republicans will address America's power-grid vulnerabilities in January when the GOP takes over the House.
"Whether it's overutilization such as you see in California or whether it's terrorism or vandalism, or whatever this event in North Carolina was ... people are hurt," Burgess told Newsmax at the time.
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