Pennsylvania Utility Regulator Sharpens Focus on Cybersecurity Threats

Pennsylvania Utility Regulator Sharpens Focus on Cybersecurity Threats

Rachel McDevitt | WHYY

Pennsylvania’s utility regulator has created a new office to deal specifically with cybersecurity threats.

The Public Utility Commission (PUC) already requires utility companies to have a cybersecurity plan in place. Officials said the new Office of Cybersecurity Compliance and Oversight will be better equipped to make recommendations to strengthen those plans.

Spokesman Nils Hagen-Frederiksen said the potential fallout from a cyber attack is only growing as utilities become more interconnected.

“Natural gas and electricity and water and wastewater and telecommunications — they’re all so deeply integrated. And if the power goes down, all of those other services typically go down in a very short period of time,” he said. “An organized cyber attack can actually have the same kind of impact as a massive hurricane, without the physical destruction,” said Hagen-Frederiksen…(Read the full story)