Energy Department offers $70M to strengthen energy infrastructure security

Increasingly sophisticated and prevalent cybersecurity and physical threats against the U.S. energy infrastructure have prompted the Energy Department to introduce the $70 million All-Hazards Energy Resilience grant program aimed at supporting research and development for threat-defending technologies, FedScoop reports. Universities, companies, tribal nations, and others could be given up to $5 million for developing such technologies, according to the Department of Energy. "There are real risks to infrastructure; a lot of research in the world heretofore has been to prevent entry and detect it once it's there. Things are going to happen and when they do, you have to be able to operate your electrical or oil or natural gas infrastructure in a degraded mode, even potentially through that compromise," said a senior official of the DOE's Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response, which will be managing the funding program.