{"id":27943,"date":"2017-11-14T07:25:03","date_gmt":"2017-11-14T12:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27943"},"modified":"2017-11-14T07:25:03","modified_gmt":"2017-11-14T12:25:03","slug":"u-s-grid-narrowly-escapes-apocalyptic-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27943","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Grid Narrowly Escapes Apocalyptic Attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. Grid Narrowly Escapes Apocalyptic Attack<\/a><\/h3>\n\"Power\"<\/picture>\n
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The American grid security story grows increasingly grim<\/a>. Last week, security consulting firm Symantec warned that recent cyberattacks gave hackers direct access to the nation\u2019s power grid on multiple occasions, according to a new report by Wired<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This time, not only the United States was exposed, said Symantec. Europe also experienced similar vulnerabilities, proving the hackers could have induced blackouts on both sides of the Atlantic. Thankfully, this apocalyptic scenario didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

In spring and summer 2017, the Dragonfly 2.0 hacker group\u2014a primary culprit featured in cybersecurity reports from many experts lately\u2014launched campaigns against energy companies. They succeeded 20 times, hacking their way into full access to their target companies\u2019 corporate servers and operations controls. This meant they could turn off circuit breakers that control the direct flow of electricity to homes and businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s 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,\u201d Eric Chien, a Symantec security analyst, told Wired<\/em>. \u201cWe\u2019re now talking about on-the-ground technical evidence this could happen in the U.S., and there\u2019s nothing left standing in the way except the motivation of some actor out in the world.\u201d Related: Venezuela Just 24 Hours Away From Formal Declaration Of Default<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Ukrainian grid power blackouts of 2015 and 2016 are generally considered the first<\/a>instances of cyberattacks wreaking havoc on a nation\u2019s power supplies. Analysts believe that the perpetrator of the first attack on Ukraine\u2019s power back in December 2015 was the Sandworm team, a group of hackers who previously targeted Europe and the United States. An updated version of their most lethal software, Blackenergy 3, was at the root of Ukraine\u2019s initial power crisis.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Grid Narrowly Escapes Apocalyptic Attack The American grid security story grows increasingly grim. Last week, security consulting firm Symantec warned that recent cyberattacks gave hackers direct access to the nation\u2019s power grid on multiple occasions, according to a new report by Wired. This time, not only the United States was exposed, said Symantec. Europe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[78,2077,5222,5332,1574,1575,1403,827,2007,14559],"class_list":["post-27943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-survival-2","tag-blackout","tag-cyberattack","tag-electrical-grid","tag-oilprice-com","tag-power-grid","tag-power-loss","tag-symantec","tag-united-states","tag-wired","tag-zainab-calcuttawala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27944,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27943\/revisions\/27944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}