January 25, 2013

Legal Duties to Avert, Mitigate, and Recover from Cyber Attacks on the Grid

Stephen J. Humes
In this brief essay, there are two objectives: first, to provide a glimpse at the complexities that will be faced by electric power utilities, wholesale power generators, power grid operators and their customers if the North American electrical grid is the target of a systematic and combined physical and cyberattack that causes cascading outages, damage to hard-to-replace equipment, and results in months of degraded reliability in electricity delivery in one or more regions; and second, to explore some of the existing and emerging legal duties of electrical utility companies and other major enterprises of the bulk power system to avert, mitigate, and recover from damaging cyberattacks on the North American electrical grid.

Related Insights