Ex-CIA director: The smart grid needs to wake up to security

According to former CIA director James Woolsey, the utility companies don’t want to think about issues like data security, so it’s up to the people working on smart grid technologies to do that. Right now, he said, they’re more concerned with adding fun new features, but it won’t be so fun if the electric grid goes down for a few days. Seventeen of the United States’ 18 pieces of critical infrastructure rely on electricity, and anything from weather to the pulse from a nuclear weapon detonated in the atmosphere could take it out. In that case, Woolsey said, “You’re not headed back to the 1970s pre-web — you’re back to the 1790s pre-electric-grid.”