North American Electric Reliability

Walking the Ports and Services Gauntlet

An approach to complying with NERC’s new cybersecurity standard, CIP-007 (R2).

NERC’s new standards require utilities to lock down network ports and services. Compliance calls for a systematic approach to cataloging and tracking.

Sun Damage

Geomagnetic storms and the limits of human experience.

On April 30, FERC held a technical conference to review scientific claims and policy arguments about geomagnetic disturbances, known as GMD—how some say that a once-in-a-century solar storm could induce a power surge on the interstate grid so destructive as to cook and fry as many 300 extra-high-voltage transformers, plunging much of the nation into a blackout lasting months or even years. Some researchers even harbor fears that GMDs could end life as we know it.