Tauseef Farooqi, chairman of the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra), expressed concern over the ongoing occurrence of cyber security incidents in the country’s energy sector and emphasized the need for a comprehensive cyber-security governance model to address the issue and guarantee the security of the critical infrastructure.
At a workshop on “Cyber Security Challenges in Critical Infrastructure (Power Sector)” on Tuesday at the Nepra Tower, he made these comments. Together with its business partner RTA, TechAccess Pakistan organized the event. The event’s goal was to educate both public and private sector energy organizations on the dangers of cyberattacks on a worldwide scale. Professionals from the power sector, leaders from the business community, and Nepra members were all there in great numbers.
The Nepra Chairman stressed the significance of the meeting by stating that “Cyberspace is the new warzone of the twenty-first century. The energy sector was the target of the majority of cyberattacks that occurred in 2021 and 2022. Because of the varied geographic locations of the generation plants and the dependency between the OT and IT infrastructure, cyber-security is particularly difficult in the power sector.
In his remarks, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Tariq Malik stressed that the “recent cyber-attacks executed via viruses or other known methods against primary energy operators are once again reminding us that we are now facing a very expensive ‘digital pandemic’ which has become widespread.” He added that cyber-security incidents are now “Ecosystem” challenges because it is not just one electricity supply chain actor that is targeted but the weakest link in the entire power system.
