PES Energize
PES Energize cyber incident
Summary
PES Energize, the municipal electric and broadband utility in Pulaski, Tennessee, reported a cybersecurity incident Dec. 5, 2025, that disabled office phones and computers. The utility closed its customer lobby, suspended in-person and phone payments, and directed outage reports to alternate channels; power and broadband delivery were not reported disrupted.
Key facts
Timeline
-
Incident start:
?
Earliest known or assessed start of malicious activity or incident activity. -
First public signal:
?
Earliest public indication of an outage, disruption, closure or other observable incident impact. The signal does not need to mention cybersecurity. -
First public cyber evidence:
?
Earliest credible public information connecting the incident or disruption to malicious cyber activity. -
Last impact seen:
?
Latest public indication that disruption, degraded operations, recovery work or unresolved impact was still ongoing.
Primary victim organization
Organization types
Critical infrastructure sector
DysruptionHub coverage
Incident characteristics
Assessments
Attack mechanisms
-
Unknown cyber mechanism
The incident is confirmed to be cyber-related, but the specific attack mechanism is unknown.
Data impacts
-
Unknown data impact
The incident is cyber-related, but available evidence does not establish whether or how data was affected.
Operational impacts
-
Phone service disruption
Telephone, voice-over-IP, call-center, or related voice communication services were unavailable or materially impaired.
-
Internal systems unavailable
Internal business, administrative, operational, or staff-facing systems were unavailable.
-
Government services disrupted
Public administrative, licensing, permitting, court, tax, records, benefits, or other government services were materially affected.
Extortion indicators
-
Unknown extortion indicators
The incident may involve extortion, but available evidence does not establish which extortion indicators were present.
Incident narrative
Analyst assessment
DysruptionHub assesses with high confidence that PES Energize experienced a disruptive cyber incident in December 2025. Our Dec. 5 report recounts the utility’s public statements that a cybersecurity incident disabled phones and computer systems and caused a precautionary shutdown of some systems. The utility worked with federal agencies and outside cyber partners.
Operational significance
The customer lobby closed and staff could not take payments in person or by phone. Customers were directed to alternate numbers and channels for outage reports and payments. The reviewed statements do not establish interruption of electric or broadband delivery.
Current status
The initial statements did not give a restoration date. Current utility contact and payment pages again list normal channels, but the reviewed sources do not establish precisely when full operations returned. This retrospective record is presumed resolved without claiming a verified all-clear.
Confidence and uncertainty
The victim’s public notices support the cyber-incident assessment and internal-service disruption. Attack mechanism, unauthorized-access confirmation, data exposure and actor identity remain unestablished. The utility said at the time that it had no indication customer data was compromised; that was a preliminary assessment.
Analytic gaps
Initial access, actor, data outcome and final restoration date remain unresolved.
Organizations involved
Impacted locations
Pulaski Electric System electric service area, Tennessee
Affected utility's electric-service remit. Cyber incident disrupted customer office phones, computers and payments; no electric or broadband delivery interruption was reported.
Pulaski, Tennessee
Pulaski is the utility's municipal core; the separate HIFLD electric-service territory is also mapped. Neither the city nor the broader territory establishes an electric or broadband delivery outage.
Pulaski office and closed customer lobby are the physical anchors.
Sources
We reported utility notices that a cyber incident disabled PES Energize phones and office computers, closed its customer lobby, and forced alternate payment and outage-reporting channels.
The Q4 2025 incident table lists PES Energize, a U.S. electricity provider, under denial of IT systems and services. It does not identify ransomware, data theft or disrupted electric delivery for this case.
See something that needs correction?
Signed-in members can report an error, update, or missing source.