Public power utilities across the country are working to create a more resilient and secure electric grid that appropriately manages the risk from a range of threats. By working with APPA, their communities, states, and the federal government, utilities are improving their physical and cyber security postures to continue providing safe, reliable, and affordable energy.
Cybersecurity Programs
Public power utilities are faced with an increasingly hostile threat landscape that requires action to improve their cybersecurity maturity and posture. APPA obtained over $25 million in funding for its members through cooperative agreements with the Department of Energy’s office of Cybersecurity Energy Security, and Emergency Response to help utilities enhance collective defense, deploy operational technology, conduct baseline assessments, receive technical assistance, and more. Contact our team at Cybersecurity@PublicPower.org to request to participate.
- ICS CyberShield supports deployment of OT cybersecurity sensors at public power utilities that serve 50,000 meters or more. To date, 26 public power utilities have received almost $5 million for these projects. Support is still available for eligible utilities interested in deploying various technologies to enhance the security of their OT and ICS networks.
- OT Insight supports small public power utilities in improving cybersecurity maturity, including through evaluating the capabilities and suitability of various OT sensors. APPA awarded $2.3M to 10 utilities to deploy 5 sensor technologies. The program is fully enrolled at this time, however, interested utilities can contact APPA to demonstrate the demand for further funding. APPA is also developing a data aggregation platform to share anonymized threat information across vendors for further analysis and dissemination, and welcomes utility participants in the data sharing working group.
- Cyber Pathways is a four-year effort targeted on improving cybersecurity maturity by first baselining public power’s cybersecurity posture and then helping utilities to improve their readiness through cybersecurity training, participating in information sharing and incident response organizations, and getting recognized for implementing best practices. While the focus of this program is on small public power utilities, public power utilities of all sizes and maturity levels are welcome to participate.
Resources
Many of the free resources available to the public power community were funded through cooperative agreements between APPA and the Department of Energy's Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response to help public power utilities create stronger, more secure systems.
Information Sharing and Analysis Centers
Information sharing and analysis centers (ISACs) are central resources for receiving and sharing cybersecurity threat information within a sector. We encourage all members of the public power community to join the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC), which is open to all electricity asset owners and operators and select government and cross-sector partners in North America.
APPA member utilities are often eligible to also join the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), which is the designated resource for cyber threat prevention, protection, and response and recovery for state, local, tribal, and territorial governments.
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