Governance model vital to tackle cyber security in power sector: NEPRA chief.

ISLAMABAD: Expressing concerns over the continuous occurrence of cyber security incidents in the national energy sector, NEPRA Chairman Tauseef H Farooqi has stressed the need to develop a comprehensive cyber security governance model to deal with this challenge and promote security.

He said this while addressing a session on "Cyber Security Challenge in Critical Infrastructure (Power Sector)" at the NEPRA Tower in the federal capital on Tuesday. The event was organized by TechAccess Pakistan jointly with its industrial partner RTA Purpose of the event was to solicit awareness amongst national public and private sectors' energy power entities against the global risks of cyber-attacks. A large number of power sector's professionals, trade and business representatives and NEPRA members of the Authority and professionals attended the session.

Highlighting the importance of the session, the NEPRA Chairman said, "Cyberspace is the 21st century's new warzone. Most of the cyber-attacks in 2021 and 2022 were focused on energy sector. Cyber security is more challenging within power sector due to dispersed geo-locations of generation plants and interdependence between OT and IT infrastructure. He added that cyber security incidents are now "Eco-System" challenges because it is not just one electricity supply chain actor that is targeted but the weakest link in somewhere in country's power system." In his remarks, CTO Tariq Malik emphasized that the recent cyber-attacks by...