1 The electric grid that spans nine counties in sparsely populated East Texas—distributing power over 5,000 miles of line to just under 25,000 members—does not seem like the kind of utility that would be taken down by a nation-state hacker or cyber criminal. Shelby Vance wants to keep it that way. Vance, the IT director of the Houston County Electric Cooperative (HCEC), harbors no illusions about the reach of cyber threats. As a regional electric distribution cooperative, HCEC is owned by its customer-members. “We have member data—credit cards, Social Security numbers, phone numbers, street and email addresses, and other information that a lot of bad actors want to have,” he explains. HCEC also maintains an operational technology (OT) network, comprised of mainly unstaffed substati

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