What is the latest frontier of attacks for ISIS (Islamic State)? The U.S. energy grid. Thankfully they are awful at hacking the energy companies (thus far). According to an announcement by the assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the Department of Homeland Security at a U.S. energy industry conference this past Wednesday. Evidently ISIS has been attempting to hack our grid without really understanding how to do it. The concern though, is that they will one day, be able to purchase that capability.

Organized crime across the globe has been purchasing the software allowing them to hack all types of networks for years. Just think of all the information breaches in the past year-Target, Home Depot, Anthem (Blue Cross/Blue Shield), just to name a few.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is also concerned about ISIS being able to solicit help in securing malware that can sneak into American computers and cause damage that way.  If they were able to hack into the grid it could spell disaster for the entire nation.

The G men seem to feel that ISIS, and their ridiculous hate filled brethren in the U.S., just don’t have the capability to hack into the grid. Thankfully their belief seems to be rooted in the knowledge of how the grid is set up.

“The grid isn’t as uniform and connected as people might believe. Currently, it’s a chaotic patchwork of “grids,” each with different types of machines and software that don’t smoothly coordinate or communicate.”

Good thing too. Another threat is Electro Magnetic Pulse which many experts have been warning about for years. Why you ask? Because it would literally send us back into the 1950’s. The government was so worried about the EMP threat circa 2008 that they formed a commission to evaluate it. The report makes it clear that the threat is real and should not be ignored.

“The much neglected 2004 and 2008 reports by the congressional EMP Commission—only now garnering increased public attention—warn that “terrorists or state actors that possess relatively unsophisticated missiles armed with nuclear weapons may well calculate that, instead of destroying a city or a military base, they may gain the greatest political-military utility from one or a few such weapons by using them—or threatening their use—in an EMP attack.”

So, hopefully, when we get a new Administration in place in 2017 someone will pay some attention to the growing threat to our national electric supply from both the hackers and the EMP’s.

Otherwise we could all end up in the dark.