The growing role of offshore wind in national power systems “accelerates cybersecurity concerns”, warned a US government-backed research team studying an increasing number of attacks on wind generation assets globally.
Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory have identified “specific challenges for cybersecurity” in relation to offshore turbines and those in distributed applications, said the US Department of Energy’s (DoE’s) Wind Energy Technologies Office, in an update on funding for programmes to help tackle the cyber-threat to US assets.
The Idaho team – which has been looking into an increase in wind industry-related cyberattacks since 2021 – said offshore machines rely even more heavily on remote communications links than their onshore equivalents, accentuating concerns over the vulnerability of O&M systems to hackers.
