The US Department of Energy has awarded $15 million to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) in an effort to help electric cooperatives expand their cybersecurity capabilities for industrial control systems (ICS).
Specifically, electric cooperatives can use the money to identify and deploy cyber monitoring technologies for ICS. The money will be awarded over a period of three years, with $10 million disbursed in 2022 and the remaining amount over the next years.
NRECA represents nearly 900 local electric cooperatives in the United States, serving a combined 42 million Americans.
“As threats and threat actors evolve, electric cooperatives consistently work to improve their cyber defenses. Funding like this helps co-ops stay ahead of the curve,” said NRECA CEO Jim Matheson. “Our longstanding partnership with DOE makes the electric grid more resilient, reliable and secure.
Learn more about cybersecurity in the energy sector at
SecurityWeek’s ICS Cyber Security Conference
The most well-known cyberattacks aimed at energy providers were seen in Ukraine, where sophisticated threat actors used complex malware and other techniques to target ICS and cause — or attempt to cause — disruption and damage.
In addition, profit-driven cybercriminals have been known to target electric utilities around the world, including in the United States and Europe, but these attacks targeted IT systems and did not impact ICS.
Related: House Passes Cybersecurity Bills Focusing on Energy Sector, Information Sharing
Related: Domain Name Security Neglected by U.S. Energy Companies
Related: North Korea’s Lazarus Targets Energy Firms With Three RATs
Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
More from Eduard Kovacs
- Industrial Giant ABB Confirms Ransomware Attack, Data Theft
- Zyxel Firewalls Hacked by Mirai Botnet
- New Russia-Linked CosmicEnergy ICS Malware Could Disrupt Electric Grids
- Drop in Insider Breaches Drives Decline in Intrusions at OT Organizations
- Zero-Day Vulnerability Exploited to Hack Barracuda Email Security Gateway Appliances
- OAuth Vulnerabilities in Widely Used Expo Framework Allowed Account Takeovers
- New Honeywell OT Cybersecurity Solution Helps Identify Vulnerabilities, Threats
- Rheinmetall Says Military Business Not Impacted by Ransomware Attack
Latest News
- Industrial Giant ABB Confirms Ransomware Attack, Data Theft
- Organizations Worldwide Targeted in Rapidly Evolving Buhti Ransomware Operation
- Google Cloud Users Can Now Automate TLS Certificate Lifecycle
- Zyxel Firewalls Hacked by Mirai Botnet
- Watch Now: Threat Detection and Incident Response Virtual Summit
- NCC Group Releases Open Source Tools for Developers, Pentesters
- Memcyco Raises $10 Million in Seed Funding to Prevent Website Impersonation
- New Russia-Linked CosmicEnergy ICS Malware Could Disrupt Electric Grids
