Electric Power Grid Disruptions : A Time Series Examination
Outages due to cyberattack on critical infrastructure is an area of concern . As seen in Table 3 , only 33 suspected cyberattacks were reported from 2003 through 2019 , and these were distributed across several years . No clear time trend across years was apparent . Thus far , respondents from no region have reported demand loss or the number of customers affected by such outages . Outages exceeding a day were reported in 21 of 33 suspected attacks . The NERC data indicated that eight regions had between one and five suspected cyberattacks . The ninth region , Western Electricity Coordinating Council ( WECC ) was an outlier with 11 events . A possible explanation is that WECC oversees the largest and most geographically diverse region , known as the Western Interconnection . Its footprint includes all or portions of the 14 Western states between . This large concentration of connected grids could be targeted for cyberattack .
Arguably , the most well-known successful grid cyberattack occurred in 2015 in the Ukraine . It is believed that hackers , allegedly linked to the Russian government , targeted portions of Ukraine ’ s energy grid with a denial of service attack and cut off electricity for several hours to tens of thousands of people ( University of Washington 2017 ). Were this type of outage to occur in the U . S ., it could potentially cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and could result in loss of life .
Table 3 . Power Outages — Suspected Cyber Attack
Outages and Consequences Across Years , Months , and Geographic / FERC Regions
Over the study ’ s 20-year period , a notable increase in outage events occurred during 2011 , and this upturn has continued into mid-2020 ( Table 4 ). Between 2000 and 2010 , there were 845 events , with an average of 77 per year ; between 2011 and mid-2020 there were 1,980 events with an average of 208 per year . This shift has been noted by others , but not fully explained .
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