https://www.wired.com/story/black-start-power-grid-darpa-plum-island/
By Lily Hay Newman
Wired.com
11.14.18
IN HIS YEARS-LONG career developing software for power grids, Stan McHann
had never before heard the ominous noise that rang out last Wednesday.
Standing in the middle of a utility command center, he flinched as a
cyberattack tripped the breakers in all seven of the grid's low voltage
substations, plunging the system into darkness. "I heard all the
substations trip off and it was just like bam bam bam bam bam bam bam
bam," McHann says. "The power’s out. All you can do is say, OK, we have to
start from scratch bringing the power back up. You just take a deep breath
and dig in."
Thankfully, what McHann experienced wasn't the first-ever blackout caused
by a cyberattack in the United States. Instead, it was part of a live,
week-long federal research exercise in which more than 100 grid and
cybersecurity experts worked to restore power to an isolated, custom-built
test grid.
In doing so they faced not just blackout conditions and rough weather, but
also a group of fellow researchers throwing a steady barrage of
cyberattacks their way, hoping to stymie their progress just as a real
enemy might.
[...]
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