The notion that ANY PART of our power grid is subject to failure/sabotage by some dumbass with a USB port/chip/disc or any such piece of krap is disgusting and smacks of lazyass incompetence of the highest order. It’s one thing to use the internet and related equipment to MONITOR operation but controlling a grid this way is beyond stupid. Controlling generation and switching by anything other than HANDS-ON , EYES-ON action is criminal.
In an earlier career part of my job was devising drills to simulate failures/casualties in nuclear power plants. The first thing that would have been corrected/eliminated as a possible problem would have been the chance that operation could be affected by something happening from outside the “wire” or “hull”. Lawsuits and jail time are too good for the clan of geniuses that have built these weaknesses into our systems.
Fellow FReep, I agree. Either incompetence, or intentional point of failure.
My late father, FReeper "Skyraider", was with power generation all his life. He would be horrified at the extent to which the grid has been compromised.
“In an earlier career part of my job was devising drills to simulate failures/casualties in nuclear power plants.”
I have a relative who, at one time, had a job to think up ways to destroy a naval station’s software. He would deliver a way to corrupt it and the naval IT people would have to come up with a way to save their functions. He did this for years.