Within the Tennessee Valley Authority’s new cybersecurity center in the utility’s downtown Chattanooga Office Complex, two dozen IT specialists stare at their computer terminals and scan email messages, twitter feeds and network activity looking to spot any signs of cyber threats.
Beneath a giant wall screen displaying areas of potential concern in TVA’s 7-state region, cyber security experts monitor a portion of the 2 billion activities across TVA’s digital platforms every day. Around the clock, workers monitor electronic messages, both from within TVA and those trying to hack into the utility’s network, looking for any attempt to disrupt communication and power deliver across more than 16,000 miles of TVA transmission lines.
Andrea Brackett, director of TVA’s Cybersecurity group, says the federal utility is vigilant and ready.
“There are all kinds of threat actors that attempt to test us on a daily basis, but I think we are in a really great spot with all kinds of layering of defenses to make sure that we’re protecting our operational assets from different types of cyber attacks that could happen, whether that is from the internet or internally from within TVA,” she said.”We’ve not had any events that have impacted our operational capability.”
But the threats of cyber hacks into America’s electric grid or digital communications and financial systems in the United States have risen to what Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen calls “a crisis mode” on cybersecurity. Following hacks last year at Equifax and Yahoo, the energy sector is regarded as another very popular target for cyber crime.
Dave Flessner – Times Free Press – August 12, 2018.
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