No one can say we weren’t warned about energy insecurities. In 1998, President Clinton signed a Presidential Directive that established a national program for critical infrastructure protection. This directive stated that the energy sector of the United States was potentially vulnerable to cyber attack and that the United States would take all necessary measures to swiftly eliminate any significant cyber vulnerabilities within this sector. Five years later President Bush’s administration published the “National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace.” This document again called for the government to secure computerized systems within the electric grid from possible cyber attack. In May 2009, President Obama stated in a speech on securing our nation’s cyber infrastructure: "It's now clear this cyber threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation," Obama said, adding, "We're not as prepared as we should be, as a government or as a country." His remarks also make clear that the United States is highly dependent on computerized systems to provide energy, but he said, “Cyber intruders have probed our electrical grid and that in other countries cyber attacks have plunged entire cities into darkness.”
It has been over a decade since President Clinton stated that cyber threats against our energy infrastructure were a national security threat. In the preceding period the cyber threats against our energy infrastructure have only increased. The reason for these increases is because of technological advances within the energy sector that has exposed the industry to unforeseen cyber vulnerabilities. The alarming thing is that more unforeseen vulnerabilities are being unintentionally engineered into the energy sector as newer technology is being introduced in an effort to improve efficiency and increase resiliency within the industry...