A bigger problem might be remotely turning off power & disabling the "smart meter" on your house.

A few months ago a paper was presented on the security of these devices: there was none. Anyone on your leg of the system can send a command to your meter to turn off power to your house.

Worse: there is a firmware upgrade command, also unprotected. After turning off power an attacker can load garbage over the meter's firmware, completely disabling it, meaning that the power company must send someone put to physically _replace_ the meter to turn power back on (the meter cannot be repaired on site - it must be replaced).

This is a doomsday scenario if carried out in Phoenix around noon on a 120F day. A coordinated attack on the system in several areas should easily overwhelm the number of workers available to replace the meters as well as the number of working meters in stock (all of which will be easily killed smart meters too).