American Terrorists Could Attack US Power Grid
There has been fear that Russia would hack into the US power grid as a novel way to severely damage America’s economy. Some of this might be done through cybersecurity measures the power companies have taken that are, due to poor implementation, vulnerable. More recently, the fear is that Americans could bring down the grid in their home country.
Domestic Attacks
According to Bloomberg, “Attacks on power facilities have spiked recently. Power companies reported 185 physical attacks or threats on grid infrastructure in 2023, more than double the number from 2021.” One concern is that this could happen near the days before the 2024 national election to disable voting machines and mechanisms that track voting totals. Such disruptions could change or mask vote tallies. The assumption at this point is these are likely to come from the far right.
Discussions about attacks on the power grids have occurred online and tracked by law enforcement. However, it is hard to identify all the sources of these threads, and because the power grid is massive, protecting it in total is impossible. Some parts of the US are already running low on electricity.
Small Outages, Big Problems
Some disruptions do not require much sophistication. Small outages can be cause by modest sized explosives, or even rifles.
The concern about the US power grid has gone on for years but the anxiety has been about causing wildfires more than anything else. That has changed substantially.
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