The US has released a 537-page guide on how to protect the country's electrical power grid from cyber attack. The guidelines on security requirements and a risk assessment framework were published by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The guidelines also include an evaluation of privacy concerns, guides to mitigating vulnerabilities, and a summary of research needs.

In 2007, Congress tasked NIST with developing a framework for secure, interoperable smart grid technology.

The urgency of the project was highlighted in July by appearance of the first publicly-known malware to target software that manages critical infrastructure, according to US reports.

The Stuxnet Trojan, which targeted supervisory control and data acquisition (Scada) software by Siemens, is believed to have infected at least a dozen systems worldwide.