MEAG Power Hones Its Readiness to Respond to Grid Attacks

MEAG Power participated recently in GridEx VIII, the largest grid security exercise in North America, hosted by NERC’​s Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC).

The goal of the biennial exercise is to engage teams from across disciplines in coordinating an effective response to extraordinary incidents that threaten the reliable operation of the grid. This year’s exercise provided several real-world cyber and physical threat scenarios designed to stress-test crisis response and recovery plans.

MEAG Power conducted a tabletop exercise, which provided the space for teams from bulk power, operations, transmission, information security and external affairs to discuss best practices for how to respond to specific incidents. The teams strategized and coordinated responses to various fictional “injects” – specific, detailed cyber and physical security events occurring across the state and MEAG Power grid assets.

MEAG Power will apply the lessons from the tabletop to improve processes and reliability of our system. NERC and the E-ISAC will apply the overall outcomes and lessons learned from GridEx exercises across the country to help improve the security of the North American grid. Reports detailing lessons learned from previous exercises are available under the “GridEx Public Reports” section on NERC’s website.​

For more info on GridEx, see this video.