Congress sounds alarm on lax dam cybersecurity

A Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee hearing warned that U.S. hydroelectric dams face growing cyber risk due to limited federal oversight, outdated FERC cybersecurity requirements, and scarce resources among operators. With only four FERC staff focused on dam cybersecurity and most non-federal dams unaudited, FERC committed to updates after completing most audits by FY2025, while experts urged Congress to fund vulnerability assessments and embed cyber-informed engineering during modernization; a prior DHS OIG report also flagged weak CISA coordination for the sector.