Not to spread concern or anything, but the electrical grid is managed and controlled by software. And that software may or may not be very reliant on AWS. I’m probably not allowed to say more than that.
However-er, flipping through those standards just now, turns out it’s 100% permitted to connect your “bulk electric system cyber-asset” to a cloud integration if done compliantly.
Not to spread concern or anything, but the electrical grid is managed and controlled by software. And that software may or may not be very reliant on AWS. I’m probably not allowed to say more than that.
Not. Electrical Scada systems are usually airgapped from the Internet.
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So somewhere in here we need some M. C. Escher stairs of AWS on the electrical grid on AWS on the electrical grid…
Power company engineer here, it’s true that a lot of our supporting and analytics software went down during the AWS event.
However, most devices that actually control grid units (called bulk electric system cyber-assets) are air-gapped or utilize a data diode.
FERC Reliability Standards and NERC CIP
However-er, flipping through those standards just now, turns out it’s 100% permitted to connect your “bulk electric system cyber-asset” to a cloud integration if done compliantly.
The process to decide to turn power plants on and off isn’t air-gaped.