"Pentagon Put Microgrid Technology to the Test at DefCon, Drawing On Hackers' Ingenuity"
The Pentagon will deploy local, self-contained electric grids, or microgrids, to 134 Army bases. But first, they put the technology to the test at DefCon, looking for hackers' assistance in identifying potentially crippling vulnerabilities so they can better prevent cyberattacks. The collaboration took place at DefCon, where over 1,700 attendees took part in the Pentagon's microgrid hacking challenge, with many of them successfully shutting down the mock grid. After several minutes of attempting various attacks, an ethical hacker from Colorado short-circuited the Pentagon's model microgrid. The Army is pushing the microgrid effort because the systems are energy efficient, cost-effective, and can keep bases operational even if a cyberattack or natural disaster disrupts the larger power grid. However, because microgrids rely on advanced technology to connect various components that provide intelligence and automation, they are vulnerable to various attacks. Renewable energy projects are frequently smart energy projects, which are inherently connected to online systems and networks, making them much more vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks, according to Morgan Higman, a fellow in the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Energy Security and Climate Change program. Failure to conduct due diligence with some of these hacking exercises could lead to serious security or operational issues, particularly for military installations. The hackers at DefCon attempted many creative ways to disrupt the grid. One of the most successful attempts involved injecting malicious code into the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather forecasts, on which microgrids rely. That is how they were able to disable a wind turbine and solar panels powering a model neighborhood. Officials said that seeing the various inventive ways the DefCon attendees found to manipulate the forecast data on which the model microgrid relied was valuable to DDS. This article continues to discuss the results of microgrid exploration by the DefCon attendees.