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Electric power plant and the lower Manhattan skyline on the East River in New York City.

How the COVID-19 Pandemic Underlines that Electrical Systems Are Essential for National Security鈥擜nd Also Vulnerable

By Ambassador (ret.) Robert F. Cekuta

While militaries have long planned for needed supplies of gasoline, jet fuel, or other hydrocarbon products and have considered this work an essential aspect of defense planning, they should also look at the possibility of attacks on electrical systems and how they might act if called upon to defend them or to retaliate against a hostile attack on these systems.

The role of electrical grids and supplies in keeping national economies functioning during the pandemic underlines their essential role in national security. Given this essential role, they can be鈥攁nd, unsurprisingly, have been鈥攖argets for attacks.

This reality underlines the need for the United States and our NATO allies to focus on protecting the integrity of electrical systems through factoring it into NATO workplans and security dialogues among NATO members and partners.

The past months have driven home in new ways how essential assured electrical supplies and functioning grids are to delivering that electricity to industries, companies, government agencies, and consumers. While governments, hospitals, and larger firms likely have backup generators or battery systems in case of interrupted supplies from the grid, most consumers and businesses do not.

Without electricity to power web-based and telecom systems and a company鈥檚 daily operations, the economic contraction resulting from pandemic-related closures would have been significantly worse. With closures businesses and governments have turned, where possible, to teleworking: meetings moved to Zoom and other on-line platforms; e-commerce picked up even in emerging market countries; and tele-medical consultations and care became routine.

These trends likely will persist even after vaccines and therapeutics become available. But even beyond that, the uncertainties surrounding the discovery and availability of public health solutions mean that such uses of the net and electricity-dependent telecom systems will continue.

This situation drives home the need for governments, including defense and foreign policy establishments, to consider threats to electricity supplies and how to counter them. These threats are evolving, particularly in the context of cyber aggression. As seen in Russia鈥檚 aggression against Ukraine, they include attacks on electricity supplies and grids as part of hybrid warfare. Individual hostile actors (hackers) and terrorist groups also engage in such activities to advance their various ends. 

The United States Government (USG) and some allies are flagging the general seriousness of the situation. The National Security Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued an alert July 23 about foreign hacking groups threatening the energy sector. Press reports note the new USG concerns include malicious groups using internet accessible operational technologies such as those that manage power grids as access points for dangerous cyberattacks. The European Union also announced for the first time sanctions against six individuals and entities in China, Russia, and North Korea in its effort to prevent, deter, and respond to malicious cyber activities directed against either the EU or its member states.

Moreover, it is important to remember that today鈥檚 situation is not tomorrow鈥檚. The growing intersection between cyber and electricity systems, including AI and smart cities, can present new vulnerabilities in our critical infrastructure. The United States and  its allies have to think not only in terms of kinetic attacks on power stations and power lines, but also about how the systems can be undermined through cyber attacks. Moreover, they need to keep pace with, if not ahead of, the governments, organizations, or individuals looking to perpetrate such attacks. The reality is that where there is a vulnerability, there may be a hostile actor looking to exploit it.

Following 9/11, the United States developed lists of critical infrastructure systems and assigned USG agencies responsibility to defend them. The question is how robust these efforts are today and whether they need to be re-examined and strengthened in light of hostile actions elsewhere in the world and evolving technologies. It is the author鈥檚 view that the U.S. defense establishment and other elements of the national security community need to take new looks at these evolving threats. At the same time, we should work with NATO partners to identify current vulnerabilities and prescribe actions that should be taken now as well as thinking about possible future attack scenarios on our electrical supplies.

We have the infrastructure and intellectual bases to address these concerns, including: The NATO Energy Security Center of Excellence in Lithuania; NATO HQ, which fosters increased information sharing among NATO partners on such thinking and planning; and enhanced leveraging of the expertise and intellectual capital at the International Energy Agency (IEA), of which many NATO countries and partners are members. The Agency has strong experience and capacity to do multidimensional thinking about current and developing threats to energy security, including continued assured supplies of electricity. Since inception following the 1973 oil embargo, the IEA has been an important part of the work of the Departments of State and of Energy to act against threats to energy security and to coordinate with key allies and partners. However, it has not been a priority of defense agencies.

Electrical systems are essential components of our national infrastructures and the security of the United States and our NATO allies and partners. The current pandemic is revealing the roles electrical power plays and underlines the necessity of thinking about how those systems can be attacked and how to act to prevent, counter, or at least minimize the effects of such attacks.

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Email Email Ambassador Robert Cekuta at ambbcekuta@yahoo.com