The Grid With Maria Sumnicht
The grid—our modern lifeline—is more vulnerable than you think. What happens when it fails? In this eye-opening episode, we sit down with
Maria Sumnicht, National Director of Cybersecurity for the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, to unravel the threats lurking in our power infrastructure. From outdated systems to foreign adversaries with the power to flip the switch, Maria reveals shocking insights on grid failures, cybersecurity risks, and the hidden dangers that could leave millions in the dark. Stay tuned—this is a conversation you can't afford to miss.
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The Grid With Maria Sumnicht
Will The Grid Fail
Foreign Equipment And Cybersecurity Risks
We have a very serious episode where we're going to address grid issues and grid failure with Maria Sumnicht. Maria is an expert in many topics and she is a National Director of Cybersecurity, Task Force on National and Homeland Security.
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We're pleased to have Maria. She's got many experiences that are probably going to end up in about a dozen episodes with us. Due to her background and history, we're going to let her share with the audience all about the power grid, which I've titled Grid Issues and Failures. Maria, welcome and I appreciate you taking the time to share this wisdom with us and your experience with the power grid. Tell us a little bit about how you even got involved in understanding the grid, how it works, and all that kind of stuff.
How I got involved in the power grid stemmed from my position in New York City Cyber Command. Initially, I was responsible for the cybersecurity posture of all IoT being procured and deployed on the city street. IoT stands for the Internet of Things, in case people don't know. That includes things like cameras, sensors, 4G LTE modems, GPS transponders on first responder vehicles, and a whole host of things. That also includes communication devices for the police department and anything that's not in a data center. I was doing that for a couple of years.
The city was trying to hire an infrastructure person an equivalent of what I was doing in the IoT space. They couldn't find one so they approached me and asked me if I would like to take that over too. My first response was, "Do I get the pay on top of the current pay?" They were like, "Of course not," but I saw that the city needed someone to at least run with that for a while. I was then responsible for the industrial control systems being procured by the city, like building lighting automation systems, HVAC systems, and other types of solar power.
It wasn't like I didn't have enough work that the city then asked me if I would be interested in taking on the security assessment of the city's water system. I said yes mostly for experience. I had no experience in that space but I rolled up my sleeves, dove in, and learned a lot. I learned a lot about water systems and their vulnerabilities.
When I left New York City, I started to do several speaking engagements at security conferences about the things I did and learned in New York City and how vulnerable we are. That got me tied into the EMP Task Force on Homeland Security, which is a nonprofit task force of industry experts. Some of the folks I work with on this task force, what we do is we identify problems, put together possible solutions, and then we present them before Congress. That's what I've been doing. I've presented grid vulnerability as well as water systems vulnerability to Congress and the various subcommittees on resiliency and infrastructure security.
With all that, what is your take on the power grid in general in terms of all these eCars and all this other stuff that's going on? I had a conversation with an engineer. He told me if we keep selling eCars, there's not going to be a grid. New York City is probably a good example. Tell us about what you think about the actual power grid being not sustainable.
The Aging And Unsustainable Power Grid
It's not sustainable because our infrastructure is very old. We've barely built any new power facilities. That includes nuclear. We've done some solar facilities but they're very limited in scope and can only provide power, and not consistently. We can ask the state of Texas on that one. We don't have enough power to support any infrastructure for charging stations for electrical cars or eCars. We don't have enough power facilities to support the massive data centers that are being built. Even on hot days or very cold days when people are running their AC or their heating systems, that puts stress on the old infrastructure that we have.
We placed an equipment on our grid from nation-states that we consider adversarial. As a former software engineer who has written a lot of code, we always wrote back doors so there's no way that there aren't any back doors in these types of equipment. These equipment are very large transformers. These things are the size of a 4 to 5-story building. It's probably the size of a 3,000-square-foot home in footprint. These things are huge.
We don't have any backup supplies for them. There's a weight of at least 18 months to 2 years if we're lucky if something happens to one of them and we have to replace it. They're very expensive, so we don't have any in stock anywhere to immediately take care of the present issue. Maybe if one of them suffers some attack. We don't have any way of replacing them. It's very deep. That's on the equipment side.
How many of you drive by these large substations in and around your neighborhoods and cities? The only thing securing them is a chain of about a five-foot chain link fence. There is no other form of physical security system around them so they can easily be compromised and taken down. I'll use the Metcalf incident in Santa Clara County. I was unfortunate enough to live in the neighborhood that got affected when they shot the Metcalf substation which supplied power North of San Jose into the San Francisco Peninsula.
What do you mean by shot? Shot it with a gun or something?
Cyber Threats Targeting The Grid
Yes, you can Google Metcalf Incident. They say it was shot with rifle fire but I believe it was probably some sort of high-powered automatic weaponry. I'm not a ballistics expert but I saw images of that.
It shut the power down. Is that what it did?
It did and it took a while for that to be replaced. In the meanwhile, they did have a backup because it's Silicon Valley. There was a backup mechanism there, but not all areas are like that. The only reason is because it was Silicon Valley.
They had the money. This show is all about worldwide threats. It's all about freaking people out, but it's also about giving them some peace here. You talked about Texas and how Texas has more oil than anybody. Their power went out a couple of years ago in the middle of winter because they were running on windmills or whatever they were doing. It's a very serious thing.
You were also talking about how these power stations only have a little fence around them. If somebody wanted to take one out, it wouldn't be a big deal. How do you see this grid threat when it's tied to cyber issues? There's something I saw in your content was about surveillance grids. What's that about?
The Importance Of Microgrids For Resilience
SurveillanceGrid is a company that I cofounded. We did physical security around two of America's, at the time, largest solar facilities. One is called Topaz, which is down in the Lancaster area, and the other one is Solar Star. They're both located in California. They were 550-megawatt facilities. It's thousands of acres of panels. It looks pretty ugly on the landscape. They tried their best to make it environmentally friendly for the migrating wildlife of the area. We did perimeter security around the entire facility. We did miles of wireless camera systems around those two facilities. Those two plants each probably sustained about 3,500 homes. That's 600 watts.
That's nothing.
That's what I'm trying to tell you. In order to power using solar, let's say, a city like Dallas. The whole surrounding area would have to be solar fields when you consider how many single-family homes are in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Solar is not a scalable solution.
To power the area using solar energy, the entire surrounding land would need to be covered in solar fields, given the number of single-family homes. Solar is not a scalable solution.
Where's the cyber problem on this stuff? Where's the cyber problem on the grid? I get the fact that they come out and beat down a fence or shoot something but on the cyber side, what's going on on the grid?
Policy And Regulation Challenges
On the cyber side, there are two facets, if not more, but there are two identifiable ones. The first one is that there's equipment on our grid that has been purchased from adversarial nation-states.
We talked about China.
All they have to do is flip off the switch. If you look at the grid in the country of Ecuador, they tore everything down and put new equipment. Ninety percent, if not all of it, because I haven't seen a complete architectural diagram of that. They replaced everything with Chinese transformers and Chinese equipment. They were able to shut down that country completely. This is the first time an entire country has no power.
They flip a switch and they turn off the country? That's crazy.
I had a meeting with some FBI officials and told them that. I said, "It would be interesting to do a forensic mapping of the equipment that is deployed in Ecuador and then compare that to any equipment of the same type that is deployed here in the United States of America." Do you see the correlation there? If they can take out our grid or even, let's say, everything East of the Mississippi, that is not a good thing. We saw what happened with the Colonial Pipeline and how it paralyzed the Southeast. Do you remember that?
Yes.
Imagine if they flip the switch and the power goes out. You can Google stories in Ecuador. The subway just stopped. Imagine no power to gasoline pumps. Hospitals can survive for a certain amount of time. It depends on how much fuel they have to run their backup generators. It's the same with water treatment facilities. Sooner or later, they're going to need more fuel and they won't be able to get any without power to get it there.
What we try to do with this show is to give people the drama and give them some peace in their hearts. With a couple of minutes, tell us from your spiritual perspective and your experience. What you would say to my audience about having peace about this grid thing?
Faith, Preparation, And Practical Readiness
I always find peace in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. With everything I do know, I always go back and leave it in his hands. The best thing to do is to be prepared. Be like Joseph. Even if you're not a believer, go and read in the Old Testament, the story of Joseph and the seven-year famine and how he prepared not just a nation. He didn't prepare the nation of Egypt but he stored up enough grain that all the countries, whatever the world was like came to him because he was that prepared.
I'm not saying you can't be prepared for this but you can be prepared for your family and have extra supplies for neighbors. Know that when things get tough, be that person who is going to step up and be the rational one to calm everyone down. Have different types of generators. Have gas-powered generators and solar-powered generators. Have plenty of food on hand and learn ways to preserve your meat.
Be prepared to support your family and have extra supplies for your neighbors. When things get tough, step up and be the rational one who keeps everyone calm.
I highly recommend everybody to go get one of those 20-pound barbecue propane. Get the various tubes and connectors. Get a little Buddy heater. You can buy them on Amazon. They're rated for indoor use. Also, in case, get yourself a $15 little propane detector. If the power goes out and it's very cold, you can at least go into one room and turn on that little Buddy heater.
With that 20-pound propane tank, it will last you ten days. You can at least do that. That will run you under $200 to get the mini Buddy, the propane, and all the hookups. It's not that expensive. You can go to Home Depot or Lowe's but I prefer that you go to your local hardware stores and buy things locally from folks and their businesses.
The thing I've learned too is that there are some solar generators out there and they're not that expensive. You can have them charged. If they go down, you can put a couple of panels out and it will give you enough to give you six outlets or something. There's some solar stuff for cell phones that's out there as well. We want to give people hope that there is stuff out there that will give them some power stuff if they can't get power.
That's a good way to look at it. What you're talking about is to be prepared. We're going to do more on this episode about how people can prepare for different things emotionally, physically, and spiritually. It's important. What I'm going to do is I'm going to let you go back to work. The audience needs to know that this woman knows all about NASA. That's going to be a fun conversation. We appreciate how busy you are and what you're doing. They can look you up on LinkedIn. We're going to close this out. I appreciate you. We'll be back in touch.
Stay warm, everyone. God bless.