You can't escape the increasing rate of cyber security incidents being reported. Only recently, on November 8th, 60 Minutes reported an increase in Cyber Attacks on US infrastructure and highlighted the risk of hackers possibly getting into the Power Grid and causing damage and chaos. Known incidents that have recently been publicized will be examined to separate fact from hype. What has the government (through FERC and NERC) mandated for utility standards compliance, in order to improve cyber security of the Bulk Electric System. Lastly, we'll discuss our experience towards the effort of compliance.

Watch the November 8th 60 minutes segment on Cyber Security threats before coming to the Technical meeting at https://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/06/60minutes/main5555565.shtml. During the program, former Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell said- "If I were an attacker and wanted to do strategic damage to the United States...I would probably attack electric power."

Vasilios 'Bill' Tsolias, P.E., is Manage - US EMS, Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) at National Grid. Other than one year as Distribution Engineer, the other 28 years of Bill's experience in the electric utility industry has been devoted in various engineering and project manager responsibilities in the development and implementation of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)/Energy Management System (EMS) systems and applications and their use in the control center environment. A focus of the last couple of years has been on North American Reliability Corporation (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) 002-009 Standards compliance.

Bill received his B.S.E.E. from Northeastern University in 1979 and M.S.E.E. (Power Engineering) degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 1980. Bill is a member of Eta Kappa Nu and Tau Beta Pi and is a Member of IEEE. He is also a member of NPCC Task Force on Infrastructure Security & Technology (TFIST) and former member of NPCC Synchronized Event Data Reporting Working Group (SEDR WG).

The meeting will be held at Olin College in Needham, MA. A light snack will be served at 6:00PM and the presentation will start at 6:30PM. A brief Boston Chapter PES Meeting will precede the presentation. For further information please call Ron Tabroff at 978-535-2815 or e-mail Ron at r.tabroff@ieee.org. Directions to Olin College: Take Route 95/128 to exit 19B (Highland Avenue, Needham). Follow Highland Avenue for 1.5 miles to a three-way intersection with Chapel and May Streets; bear slight right onto Chapel Street (to the right of the gas station). Take a right at the first light onto Great Plain Avenue/Rte 135. Proceed on Great Plain Avenue for 1.5 miles and the Olin College campus will be on the right. Enter the campus at "Olin Way" and follow the road around to the left to parking lot A, which provides access to all campus buildings. The meeting is being held at the Auditorium at Milas Hall.