The Trump administration has blamed the Russian government for a series of cyber attacks targeting American and European nuclear power plants and other critical utilities dating back at least two years – raising fears that the Kremlin could disrupt the West’s critical infrastructure in the event of a conflict.
The hackers also targeted the overall energy sector, along with commercial facilities, aviation, manufacturing and the water supply, according to a U.S. security alert published Thursday.
The Department of Homeland Security and FBI said in the alert that a “multi-stage intrusion campaign by Russian government cyber actors” had targeted the networks of small commercial facilities “where they staged malware, conducted spear phishing, and gained remote access into energy sector networks.” The alert did not name facilities or companies targeted. –Reuters
The report says that Russians used various hacking techniques, including spear-phishing emails, watering-hole domains, credential gathering and open-source and network reconnaissance.
Russian hackers made their way to machines with access to critical control systems at power plants that were not identified. The hackers never went so far as to sabotage or shut down the computer systems that guide the operations of the plants.
Still, new computer screenshots released by the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday made clear that Russian state hackers had the foothold they would have needed to manipulate or shut down power plants. –NYT
“We now have evidence they’re sitting on the machines, connected to industrial control infrastructure, that allow them to effectively turn the power off or effect sabotage,” said Eric Chien, a security technology director at Symantec, who added “From what we can see, they were there. They have the ability to shut the power off. All that’s missing is some political motivation.”
The New York Times notes that “American officials and security firms, including Symantec and CrowdStrike, believe that Russian attacks on the Ukrainian power grid in 2015 and 2016 that left more than 200,000 citizens there in the dark are an ominous sign of what the Russian cyberstrikes may portend in the United States and Europe in the event of escalating hostilities.”
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