EEI Convention Opens with Call to Work with “Friendly Hackers”

The annual Edison Electric Institute (EEI) Convention for investor-owned utilities began on Monday in Chicago with a focus on both cyber threats and physical threats.

Although the opening general session included celebratory announcements of the Edison Awards, the morning also had somber moments. Prepared comments were revised to acknowledge the horrific mass killing of at least 49 victims and the wounding of many more at a nightclub in Orlando over the weekend.

After a welcome from Exelon Corp. President and CEO Chris Crane, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel welcomed attendees after commenting first on the weekend's events in Orlando, saying it was "an attack on our common values" and calling for a moment of silence.

Emanuel then noted that Chicago sees retrofits and energy conservation as a "sixth energy source" in addition to the familiar fuels. In the past year, he said, Chicago realized $4.5 million in savings from retrofits in just its public sector. Beyond building retrofits, Chicago, which has more streetlights than any other city in the country, plans to retrofit those fixtures with LEDs and has had 30 companies bid to do the work.

Think Like, and Hire, Hackers

International security analyst, author, and speaker Keren Elazari gave the first presentation, designed to persuade the typically conservative and risk-averse utility leaders to think like, and hire, hackers.

International security analyst, author, and speaker Keren Elazari urged electric utilities to welcome "friendly hackers" to help test and secure their systems. Courtesy: Keren Elazari, ww.k3r3n3.com

Though hackers generally have a bad reputation, Elazari argued that they can be valuable partners. Cybersecurity is no longer just about passwords and stolen credit card numbers; it's about defending our "new way of life," she said. Today, there are cybersecurity implications intimately tied to everything from automated embedded insulin pumps (which are vulnerable to an RFID hack) to hackable vehicles and industrial control systems.

Elazari holds an MA in security studies and is a senior research fellow of the Tel Aviv University Science, Security & Technology workshop. Since 2000, she has worked with leading Israeli security firms, government organizations, Global Big 4, and Fortune 500 companies.

But when Elazari was younger, she was such a "nerd" that she looked like a boy, she noted-proving her point with a class photo. The year 1995 was a turning point. MIT's Nicholas Negraponti was about to release his book Being Digital and Angelina Jolie's movie Hackers came out. Elazari was 14, and it was the first time she realized girls could be hackers and heroes and "a force for change."

In 2014, Elazari became the first Israeli woman to ever speak at the annual TED conference. Her "Why We Need Hackers" TED talk has been viewed by 1.5 million people worldwide, translated into 26 languages, and selected for TED's "Most Powerful Ideas in 2014" and Inc.com's "Top TED Talks of 2014."

In her EEI presentation, she called hackers "the Internet's immune system" and gave several examples of hackers who "demonstrate a threat to spark a solution," as was the case with a hack of the Jeep Cherokee that led to a recall that was not caused by a catastrophic event.

Elazari urged the utility industry to adopt an approach used now by many tech companies-and even the Pentagon: setting up a "bug bounty" program that invites hackers to test a system and find vulnerabilities before they cause harm.

Working together is crucial, as no one agency or group can solve the cyber threat challenge, she said. Firewalls are "a 20th-century solution." The cyber threat is "an exponential problem," not a linear one because of expanding technological capabilities. She acknowledged that the utility industry is already doing good work in this area, but there's more to be done, especially in terms of sharing threat intelligence. Focus not just on who and why, she said, but more on how and when an attack will strike your organization. Watch the attacks on other sectors and look for patterns.

Elazari made the argument that in many cases of cyberattacks, governments are posing as hackers, and she implied that Iran is a prime example, as it was missing from a long list of countries attacked by one particular set of phishing emails sent to "interesting organizations."

The solution, she said, is to "share, collaborate, innovate," and work with "friendly hackers."

She also suggested that the media inflates the catastrophic dimensions of the cyber threat and noted that more outages are caused by squirrels than by cyberattacks, as demonstrated by a map that marks the sites of "squirrel attacks" on the U.S. grid.

As for the Orlando massacre and the gunman's alleged allegiance to ISIS, Elazari said, "Hackers are not necessarily the enemy to fighting terrorists online." The group Anonymous and others-including Miss Jordan 2010-she said, are taking the fight to ISIS and are fighting a hactivist battle against the extremist group.

Fox's Kelly on Life, Career, and Politics

Elazari was followed by Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, who began with comments on the Orlando shooting, saying, "the enemy" is "still there." She acknowledged the effect this event and other terrorist attacks have had on emotions and political debates but added, "We need to live our lives . . . and visit places like Paris, if we can."

In her prepared remarks and a conversation with Nick Akins, EEI chairman as well as chairman, president, and CEO of American Electric Power, Kelly talked about her childhood in upstate New York, her feisty mother, her own family, taking chances to switch and advance her career, and what it has been like to work at Fox, especially during an unusual presidential primary season.

Kelly-who says she is nonpartisan, that Fox is not "conservative," and that many who work for Fox have "no ideology"-said of this cycle's presidential candidates, "Some are such babies!" Though some candidates (she named Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio) never complained about tough questions, others, in particular Donald Trump, have. In the end, we have what many, she said, are calling the "hold-your-nose election."

-Gail Reitenbach, PhD, editor (@GailReit, @POWERmagazine)

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