Critical Infrastructure and Cyber/Timing Systems

A destructive windstorm-induced power outage at the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Boulder, Colorado lab on Wednesday, followed by a failed backup generator, caused the U.S. official time standard (NIST UTC) to run 4.8 microseconds slow, agency officials said. Although the lab’s 16 atomic clocks continued operating on battery backup, the failure of connections to NIST’s measurement and distribution systems produced the drift, which could matter for high‑precision applications in telecommunications, GPS and critical infrastructure even as it remains imperceptible to the public; NIST staff later restored backup power with a reserve diesel generator and are now working to correct the error after main power was restored by Saturday evening.