Grid operators step up defense against cyberattacks

Germany’s grid operators are working on their defenses against hacker attacks on their critical infrastructure, Christian Schaudwet writes for energy and climate newsletter Tagesspiegel Background. Energy company innogy built a new training centre – called CyberRange-e – where professional hackers and experts from other grid operators create realistic attacks for innogy’s IT experts to deal with, Schaudwet writes. “Digitalisation is a pre-requisite for the Energiewende. But each decentralised installation with a connection to the internet is at the same time a potential point of attack for hackers,” innogy’s head of security, Florian Haacke told Tagesspiegel Background.

Digitalisation is seen as crucial for the next phase of the Energiewende because it offers enormous potential to speed up the decarbonisation of the world’s fourth largest economy. But the shift will upend many existing business models, and has raised concerns about data privacy and cyberattacks.