Power Grid Attack

[xoxoxoBruce]

And the beat goes on...

Symantec on Wednesday revealed a new campaign of attacks by a group it is calling Dragonfly 2.0, which it says targeted dozens of energy companies in the spring and summer of this year. In more than 20 cases, Symantec says the hackers successfully gained access to the target companies’ networks. And at a handful of US power firms and at least one company in Turkey—none of which Symantec will name—their forensic analysis found that the hackers obtained what they call operational access: control of the interfaces power company engineers use to send actual commands to equipment like circuit breakers, giving them the ability to stop the flow of electricity into US homes and businesses.

“There’s a difference between being a step away from conducting sabotage and actually being in a position to conduct sabotage ... being able to flip the switch on power generation,” says Eric Chien, a Symantec security analyst. “We’re now talking about on-the-ground technical evidence this could happen in the US, and there’s nothing left standing in the way except the motivation of some actor out in the world.”

When you suddenly stop the juice going out it's a pain in the ass for the public. I can't flush my toilet, traffic and street lights out, have to watch TV by flashlight, and communications fail. Most critical things have backup power but my ice cream melts. It's also bad for the generators to be suddenly constipated, they'll probably trip out and restart can be a long procedure, but that's only after the operators are sure they have control.

When would it happen? A holiday, a Friday afternoon rush hour, Superbowl Sunday, during a North Korea rocket attack, during a Mexican or Canadian invasion?