Posted on 04/16/2014 12:42:41 PM PDT by george76
In Congress, the vulnerability of the power grid has emerged as among the most pressing domestic security concerns.
...
Crain, the owner of a small tech firm in Raleigh, N.C., along with a research partner, found penetrating transmission systems used by dozens of utilities to be startlingly easy. After they shared their discovery with beleaguered utility security officials, the Homeland Security Department began sending alerts to power grid operators, advising them to upgrade their software.
The alerts haven't stopped because Crain keeps finding new security holes he can exploit.
"There are a lot of people going through various stages of denial" about how easily terrorists could disrupt the power grid, he said. "If I could write a tool that does this, you can be sure a nation state or someone with more resources could."
Those sorts of warnings, along with vivid demonstrations of the grid's vulnerability, such as an incident a year ago in which unknown assailants fired on a power station near San Jose, nearly knocking out electricity to Silicon Valley, have grabbed official attention.
...
a cyberterrorist with a little knowledge and the right laptop can gain that access and cause chaos in a regional power system merely by linking up with the control panel at a secluded electric vehicle charging station.
Other attacks, as the Silicon Valley incident showed, can take shape without computers. Last month, New Jersey's Regional Operations Intelligence Center, a state agency that monitors security threats, published a report revealing constant breaches at power stations. The incidents involved people armed with such mundane equipment as false identification, wire cutters and crowbars.
...
"Many of the grid's important components sit out in the open," the report said, "often in remote locations, protected by little more than cameras and chain-link fences."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
“We have top men working on that right now.”
“Who?”
“Top...Men.”
Imagine what they could have done with all the $$ wasted on ‘green energy’ & failed governmental business investments...
Fortunately, now that the Obamacare website is fixed, they can redeploy all those brilliant engineers who developed and fixed it and reassign them to the task of preserving the security of the power grid.
That’s a line from Caddy Shack!
Silly....that $$ is strictly for lining the pockets of DC deal makers, not for safeguarding us plebs who pay for all of it!
Not from Caddy Shack, but Raiders of the Lost Ark.
I was thinking of this line from the Scottish Groundskeeper, referring to killing all the go[l]phers:
“I’ll put my best man on it!”
Just theorizing here:
If somebody happened to take out the grid that feeds Vegas, would the feds shift the focus away from rustling cattle and deal with the ensuing chaos?
/theory
Probably the same ones who were working on the Ark of the Covenant.
Maj. Eaton: We have top men working on it now.
Indiana: Who?
Maj. Eaton: Top... men.
NAHHHH! First things first!
Hey, you armed BLM marshals and swat teams. Forget about the power grid vulnerabilities open to our enemies and terrorists. Our priorities are to get those beef cattle off of their range land in Nevada so they don’t imperil the endangered tortoises out there or interfere with Harry Reid’s solar energy scheme with the Chicoms.
First things first, doncha’ know?
Might wanna give securing the southern border some thought......
This is so unnecessary ...
I work in telecom [as a consultant]. I always advise my clients that they should not put command and control functions of their equipment on to the Internet.
My clients can put alarm functions on the Internet that notify them when something is wrong. They then have to go to alternate modes of communication in order to control the equipment.
The alternate modes of communication? Either a dedicated T1 line or a dial-back modem [with username/password authentication].
Simple, secure, and relatively cheap - just the cost of doing business.
They not only shouldn’t put it on the internet. They shouldn’t have it on computers that are connected to the internet. It should be a closed system.
They not only shouldn’t put it on the internet. They shouldn’t have it on computers that are connected to the internet. It should be a closed system.
Too little and too late. These federal bureaucrats couldn’t pour water out of a boot. Their skills at fighting terrorism are so good that if they provided security for the the Sahara Desert, in five years the Sahara would have a shortage of sand. Incompetent does not begin to describe these oafs with attitudes.
Barry is scrambling to inform the muzzies what those holes are.
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