Coming out of the virtual darkness

The last two days have seen a major test of the electrical infrastructure of this nation. Known as GridEx this exercise is run by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. From their website:

GridEx
The objectives of the NERC Grid Security Exercise (GridEx) series are to utilize simulated scenarios (with NO real-world effects) to exercise the current readiness of participating Electricity Sub-sector entities to respond to cyber or physical security incidents and provide input for security program improvements to the bulk power system. GridEx is a biennial international grid security exercise that uses best practices and other contributions from the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

NERC conducted the first sector-wide grid security exercise, GridEx 2011, on November 16-17, 2011. The exercise was designed to validate the readiness of the Electricity Sub-sector to respond to a cyber incident, strengthen utilities� crisis response functions, and provide input for internal security program improvements. The GridEx 2011 after-action report is below.

The 2011 report is here (PDF) Fun stuff for us preppers...