Posted on 05/31/2023 9:07:33 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
As if you didn’t have enough to worry about. Who will bring down America’s power grid first? Joe Biden or Vladimir Putin? Biden has a head start, to be sure. But some Russian hackers have reportedly cooked up some new malware designed specifically to target electrical grids and cause disruptions. The new threat was discovered by Mandiant, a cyber threat intelligence specialist firm. They believe that this new malware system “poses a plausible threat” to the operational technology behind various electrical grid assets. (Security Week)
Mandiant on Thursday detailed a new piece of malware that appears to be linked to Russia and is designed to target industrial control systems (ICS), specifically in an effort to cause electric grid disruption.
Named CosmicEnergy, the latest malware family targeting operational technology (OT) is designed to interact with IEC 60870-5-104 (IEC-104) devices, sending remote commands to tamper with the actuation of power line switches and circuit breakers in an effort to cause power disruption. Mandiant believes it “poses a plausible threat to affected electric grid assets”.
At least for the time being, the United States might not have quite as much to worry about from this threat as other parts of the world. According to the geeks at Mandiant, the new “CosmicEnergy” malware is highly customized and the configuration they discovered is designed to attack remote elements of power grids like the ones used in Europe, the Middle East and other parts of Asia.
But if the malware can be configured to attack theirs, it can almost certainly be adapted to work on elements of the American grid. You can read the linked report for all of the technical jargon, but the gist of it seems to be that hackers would need to collect the IP addresses and credentials of the grid’s technology systems. CosmicEnergy would then be able to upload files into the utility’s systems and issue commands, including the ability to simply take the system offline.
This is yet another example of why we need to be working on a massive project to modernize, insulate, and generally “smarten” the American power grid. We are falling behind some very bad actors in the technology race. It’s bad enough that we have maniacs shooting up our electrical substations on a regular basis. But if we’re going to be attacked by some geeks in Siberia over the internet and potentially watch the entire country’s electrical infrastructure go dark, we need to get moving.
The technology war between mainstream systems and hackers has been going on for quite a while now. As early as 2012, hackers successfully hacked into the display systems at multiple nuclear power plants, nearly causing operators to make catastrophic errors. South Korea’s nuclear facilities suffered similar attacks in 2014. This is a constant back-and-forth battle that continues to this day. Just when you think you have all of the holes in your system plugged, some Blackhat coding guru finds a way to drill new ones. And now, if they can’t figure out a way to take down the systems that generate the power, they’ll look to interrupt the delivery system.
It would be nice if some of those trillions of dollars that the Democrats flushed into Joe Biden’s supposed “infrastructure” bill had gone to actual infrastructure and not climate change initiatives. And the power grid is every bit as critical to our national security as our roads and bridges. Probably more so, in fact. Then again, if the administration is going to keep crippling our domestic energy production, there might not be enough electricity to keep the grid up anyway, so perhaps it doesn’t matter.
Program hostile AI with the proper algorithms and a foreign enemy could shut down the US in less than 15 minutes and even direct it to self destruct without firing a shot.
I have no information to support my speculation, but the first thing that came to mind was that someone was laying the groundwork to blame Russia when the inevitable grid collapses occur caused by the bad decisions being made by the Biden administration and many states.
Russia, Russia, Russia...
I’m much more worried about US FedGov run Malware being used to bring down the US power grid.
A gas-station posing as a country
- John McCain
B. S.
This Event 201 all over again.
They are telling us what they are going to do to us and who they are going to blame.
We do ourselves NO FAVOR by belittling Russia. It may be corrupt and all that but it is filled with brillant and malevolent scientists and technicians who can do us and the world in general, much harm.
But...the CIA learned how to make it look like their hacks come from Russia. And, the globalists just handed out satellite phones...Biden’s regime is losing control and there are now hints of blackouts etc.
I won’t believe a damn thing this government tells me.
Yep. AI armed domestic lunatic radicals can certainly do such a thing. Slashing paint on art will seem quaint.
Russsia is to blame for it all! Trump! Hillary losing etc... Just wait till Russia really is to blame?
This answers the question: “With America lost, who will save us from the scoundrels in charge?”
Throwing modern America back to the 19th Century in an instant would certainly throw the tyrants a catastrophe they could not handle.
If it could, it already would have.
From my knowledge of US and foreign energy infrastructure...
Operational networks, those that actually are connected to the PLC’s and the like that run instruments and controls, are never connected to public networks and are unavailable to be publicly hacked.
They aŕe also “airgapped” from the corporate/business networks that run general communications, accounting, public websites, etc.
There are also a host of internal controls that prevent known ways of jumping “airgaps” such as USB’s (as was done in the Stuxnet case).
It’s not so easy to get such code to its target.
Handing out satellite phones to members of congress won’t save the elites from the anarchy triggered by America having no electricity.
Those who can’t respond quickly to living as Americans did in the 19th Century will not survive more than a month or two.
Americans would experience a nationwide, deadly panic of Old Testament proportions leading to widespread violence and death.
If this happened in winter, millions in the northern states would freeze to death.
There would be no cavalry riding to the rescue.
Fortunately, personal firearms and ammunition are analog and not digital.
“Who will bring down America’s power grid first? Joe Biden or Vladimir Putin?”
China. If they can get past the security, which is not easy.
I have been in numerous security briefings over the years. They are by far the most active state supported aggressor in hacking attempts vs US infrastructure.
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