Dept. of Energy to Test Electrical Grid Against Cyberattacks

Can the electrical grid bounce back from a blackout caused by hackers?

The Department of Energy wants to find out, so it's launching the first hands-on exercise to test the grid's ability to recover from a blackout caused by cyberattacks, E&E News reports. Its weeklong experiment, dubbed "Liberty Eclipse," will take place starting Nov. 1 on a restricted area off the New York coast called Plum Island.

Experts want to replicate the process of restarting the power grid while addressing an attack on the United States' electric, oil, and natural gas infrastructure. Their goal is to learn how industry might execute its response to a major incident – a sign of the DoE's increasing interest in arming against digital threats to the country's energy system.

Over the course of the test, participants will work to kick-start attack recovery and energize a "blackstart cranking path" by detecting the attack, eliminating the attackers, and getting crank path digital systems up and running, the DoE states in a memo. Previous tests have avoided testing "blackstart" in an effort to stay on track with their other goals.

Read more details here.

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