"Birnbaum has reason to fret. A recent report from the International Energy Agency found the average number of cyberattacks against utilities each week more than doubled between 2020 and 2022 worldwide — with 1,101 weekly attacks registered last year."<p>Not questioning the attacks per se, but the problem with this kind of reporting is that there are no commonly agreed definitions and hence no one believes any of these numbers.<p>“It is clear that these attacks come from the East: the Russian Federation and non-democratic countries,” he added."<p>Without putting evidence on the table, I am not sure whether this kind of quasi-attribution is helpful; it may easily turn into fear-mongering and alter the public perception.<p>"The challenge is that the operating systems used by Europe’s grids are up to 40 years old, said Swantje Westpfahl, director of the Institute for Security and Safety think tank, meaning they’re “very hard to patch” if there’s a problem. Energy suppliers are often still figuring out how to secure both operations and information systems (OT and IT) and make sure they work with trusted partners in their supply chains."<p>"Equally, as grid networks increasingly digitalize, “it’s really hard to find” cybersecurity experts to match the growing cyber risks, Westpfahl added."<p>These are real problems, yes.