Wall Street Has a $1.7 Billion Bet on the Rising Risk of Grid Attacks

The world’s power plants and transmission lines are more networked to each other and controlled via the Internet than ever before. And in that, Wall Street sees a business opportunity.

Investors including banks and venture capital firms more than doubled their financing last year to private companies focused on developing cyber-security solutions for power-grid operators, utilities and other industrial businesses, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance analysis shows. The $1.7 billion of funding since 2010 is a bet that the industry’s rush into the Internet-of-things era will raise the risk of cyber-attacks on grids and demand for services that fight them.