“It’s going really well,” said Gerry W. Cauley, the president and chief executive of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which ran the drill. “A bit scary, but really well.”
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The degree of simulation varied, organizers said. Nobody touched actual operating equipment, but some companies sent trucks with linemen aboard to investigate the status of key transformers because the “scenarios” written by Mr. Cauley’s group included computer viruses that kept technicians at the control centers from knowing the condition of crucial equipment.
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Drill participants said they would not talk about the specific locations of the simulated attacks, for two reasons: The locations were chosen at points that the insiders knew were vulnerable, and the companies involved were promised that if they participated, their performance would not be held up to public criticism. The purpose, organizers said, was to pose problems that were hard to solve, to expose areas that needed improvement.
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One main component of the drill was a log of all communications to record who said what to whom, by email or phone, to determine whether the participants could promptly reach the appropriate people at power companies, police stations or distant cybersecurity centers, and whether they could convey the appropriate information. The information supplied by the game controllers included some “fog of war” confusion, Mr. Cauley said.