Editors' Note: This is
the first in our third annual
end-of-year series examining important trends in data privacy and
cybersecurity during the coming year. Up next:
comparing data protection regulations aimed at children under both
COPPA and the GDPR.
While 2018 has been a year of unprecedented and escalating
cyber-related threats generally, such has certainly been the case
with respect to attacks on the nation's domestic energy
facilities. For example, a media report from earlier this year describes
hackers' successful infiltration of the control rooms of
multiple electric utilities. According to the article, and
many others like it, attacks by both independent and
state-sponsored hackers pose an on-going and constant threat to the
security of the nation's bulk power system. Agency
oversight of the industry has focused on fortifying infrastructure
against physical intrusion, erecting firewalls and other barriers
to prevent electronic entry, and developing
