Washington Post has been particularly ridiculous this season

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

It turns out there was a lone laptop involved, quickly isolated, infected with what the community calls "commodity malware" - a virus developed and then sold and widely spread.

That is how most data breeches are done. When dealing with the grid, any breech by simplistic software is a major news story. Breeching (stealing) the payroll for a company is a problem - not anywhere as serious. Power grid utilities cannot accept such trivial software breeching on any of their computers. Since that is how passwords are stolen to, in one case, cause major machine to self-destruction.

If commodity malware can breech security, then how bad is their security? A threat even to power for The Cellar. Never forget a massive 2003 blackout created by operational mismanagement in only one company in Ohio - First Energy. A looming disaster fortunately and successfully stopped by PJM, New England Power Authority, and Quebec Electric.