(I've done network security stuff for DoD and for some agencies, but you may have more experience on the classified side than I do, and what relevant experience I have I'm not going to give up to Hacker News and the Google index.)
And again: the NSA has done absolutely nothing to ensure that adversaries can't shut the power down in major cities, disrupt the GSM infrastructure, or cause billions of dollars in economic damages by messing with electronic markets.
And again: we have no specific knowledge that any branch of the military or intelligence has that capability to inflict on an adversary today.
Is there substantial overlap here with NSA? I'm 100% sure there is. But NSA is managed very differently than DoD.
Is any of the electric grid even publicly accessible over the internet? Surely there isn't a big "off" button for the power grid, as its quite a distrubted system... Furthermore I really doubt the infrastructure for these is publicly accessible over the internet. Even so, it seems like physical security would go a much longer way than network in the case of utilities.
As for markets, well there is a tiny agency called the SEC.
Either way this security is a cost to be borne by industry...Not ran by state military agencies.
Let's just call this for what it is, a power grab for defense/infosec contractors, and career officers. :)
To that end I'm not surprised to see it so vehemently defended by infosec professionals.
As for the markets, what does the SEC do when they get shut down by an electronic attack, other than hold a press conference?
And yes. I'm pretty sure you should just take my word for it on the utilities stuff.
As for the power companies, I'm sure thats why they hire security professionals like yourself :).
The SEC provides regulations.
Billions don't need to be sunk by defense agencies on what is essentially a regulation issue.
A lot of these doomsday scenarios are bullshit. The world ran fine without cell phones and the internet, it'll run just as fine without it for a little while. Aside from a medical case here and there, noone is going to die and no country will dissolve as a result of being hacked on the internet or even being without power for a little while.
But yes, regulations would be nice. That way, after a foreign power we've pissed off by parking aircraft carriers in their shipping lanes decides to inflict tens of billions of dollars of damage on us with a a few hours keyboarding, we can at least try to sue someone.
Electronic or financial damage is nothing compared to the ability to level entire nations physically. Any financial/electronic threat has a suitable recourse physically.