Although there isn't a current threat of an EMP to take down the U.S. electrical grid, a similar effect could be achieved by cyberattacks on American utility companies, in particular hacking into a nuke to force its shutdown and removal from the grid. Because the nuclear plants supply baseload their removal could unbalance large sections of the grid. If enough of these hacks happen close to simultaneously the various system operators would be at risk of cascading failures. And unless the ISOs and RTOs shut down quickly there is a risk of the cascade crossing the system interconnects.
From the Daily Mail, June 19/20 i.e. before the U.S. entered the war:
Desperate Iranian mullahs could lash out at America ordering deadly cyber attacks on our dams and electricity grids – or even terror attacks from 'sleeper cells', security experts are warning.
DailyMail.com spoke to former top diplomats, cybersecurity and national security experts who said that although the Iranian regime is on the back foot and reeling from Israeli bombardment, it still has the ability to wreak havoc on US soil.
A former senior diplomat who had extensive Top Secret security briefings on Iran told Daily Mail hat the new 'hot war' between Iran and Israel, and Ayatollah Khameini's increasingly desperate position, has ratcheted up the risk of the regime taking drastic action in the US.
'I can't imagine, seeing how this war is going, that Iran is going to hold back,' said the top ex-US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
'They're running out of options, and this is one of the areas in which they've unfortunately been quite effective.
'You can't manufacture new missiles or centrifuges overnight. But you can empower whatever proxies are remaining to act with even more deadly results.
'Assassination attempts, terror attacks, they will of course still try to do those things. It's no secret they have made assassination attempts on US soil, in Washington DC.
'Their capabilities for doing so are becoming less both because of their degrading situation, and also because we're on much higher alert here in DC.
'But If they employ hacking capabilities on mass infrastructure, our energy grid, our nuclear facilities, major dams, these are all things that are vulnerable.'
The former top State Department official said Iran had been pouring money for years into political opposition to US Iran hawks and promoting critiques of its enemies such as Israel on university campuses.
But a hail-Mary strategy for the regime action could see Iranian government-backed online activity turn to more dangerous hacking.
'It's not just about stoking up anti-American fervor on campus. It's also about finding the weakest parts of the systems that keep us all safe,' the ex-official said.
'You don't need to bomb trains. You could just have the signals mixed up due to a digital hack and have them run into each other.'
Rex Booth, who worked as the chief of cyber threat analysis at the government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, gave a stark warning that Iran's hackers have already infiltrated critical US infrastructure.
'They have a demonstrated ability of infiltrating infrastructure and remaining there undetected for extended periods of time,' he told DailyMail.com.
Booth pointed to a 2013 hack of the control center of the Bowman Avenue Dam in Westchester County, New York by hackers working for Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps....
....MUCH MORE
Politico was raising similar concerns on June 17th:
US critical networks are prime targets for cyberattacks. They’re preparing for Iran to strike.
