Posted on 03/11/2005 5:42:11 AM PST by EBH
By Justin Blum, Washington Post Staff Writer
Fri, Mar 11, 2005
Hundreds of times a day, hackers try to slip past cyber-security into the computer network of Constellation Energy Group Inc., a Baltimore power company with customers around the country.
"We have no discernable way of knowing who is trying to hit our system," said John R. Collins, chief risk officer for Constellation, which operates Baltimore Gas and Electric. "We just know it's being hit."
Hackers have caused no serious damage to systems that feed the nation's power grid, but their untiring efforts have heightened concerns that electric companies have failed to adequately fortify defenses against a potential catastrophic strike. The fear: In a worst-case scenario, terrorists or others could engineer an attack that sets off a widespread blackout and damages power plants, prolonging an outage.
Patrick H. Wood III, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (news - web sites), warned top electric company officials in a private meeting in January that they need to focus more heavily on cyber-security. Wood also has raised the issue at several public appearances. Officials will not say whether new intelligence points to a potential terrorist strike, but Wood stepped up his campaign after officials at the Energy Department's Idaho National Laboratory showed him how a skilled hacker could cause serious problems.
Wood declined to comment on specifics of what he saw. But an official at the lab, Ken Watts, said the simulation showed how someone could hack into a utility's Internet-based business management system, then into a system that controls utility operations. Once inside, lab workers simulated cutting off the supply of oil to a turbine generating electricity and destroying the equipment.
Describing his reaction to the demonstration, Wood said: "I wished I'd had a diaper on."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Related article with a lot of info (from 2002):
Cyber-Attacks by Al Qaeda Feared
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50765-2002Jun26
Late last fall, Detective Chris Hsiung of the Mountain View, Calif., police department began investigating a suspicious pattern of surveillance against Silicon Valley computers. From the Middle East and South Asia, unknown browsers were exploring the digital systems used to manage Bay Area utilities and government offices. Hsiung, a specialist in high-technology crime, alerted the FBI's San Francisco computer intrusion squad.
Working with experts at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the FBI traced trails of a broader reconnaissance. A forensic summary of the investigation, prepared in the Defense Department, said the bureau found "multiple casings of sites" nationwide. Routed through telecommunications switches in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Pakistan, the visitors studied emergency telephone systems, electrical generation and transmission, water storage and distribution, nuclear power plants and gas facilities.
Some of the probes suggested planning for a conventional attack, U.S. officials said. But others homed in on a class of digital devices that allow remote control of services such as fire dispatch and of equipment such as pipelines. More information about those devices -- and how to program them -- turned up on al Qaeda computers seized this year, according to law enforcement and national security officials.
Most significantly, perhaps, U.S. investigators have found evidence in the logs that mark a browser's path through the Internet that al Qaeda operators spent time on sites that offer software and programming instructions for the digital switches that run power, water, transport and communications grids. In some interrogations, the most recent of which was reported to policymakers last week, al Qaeda prisoners have described intentions, in general terms, to use those tools.
I know know one who thinks hackers are "cute"...
know no one (my great friday spelling)
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I know know one who thinks hackers are "cute"...
It was not all that long ago that some companies, even victims of the hackers, would hire them as "Security consultants".
By doing so, it certainly did not discourage hacking.
Had the first hackers been (Figuratively) impaled in the town square, shreiking as they slid down the stake, rather than rewarding them, we would not be having these problems today.
I really wish you would stop stealing my Oscar winning movie ideas
Thank yew!
~.~
No it couldn't. There is absolutely NO WAY the grid could be brought down.
Don't believe it? Just ask underscoreJim...
"Maybe a dumb question, but what can't key facilities such as power plants be taken off the internet and be operated by INTRAnet? Wouldn't this put an easy halt to hackers. If there is no link between the hackers and the installations, there is no conduit for them to access the installations."
Uht-Oh. Better pack a bag and scram. The Black Helicopters will be landing on your roof any moment. You are on to them and must be eliminated. ;)
Wow! LOVE your tag line!!!
Thanks. It sums up my feelings about EnviroWackos in two short statements. :)
>>>Interesting pingees ya got there! ;)
hee hee
Aren't I a stinka?
:)
I did actually lose a lot of respect for the one not named in the "To:" of the post.
That's why we loves ya...
Could be that some former FSBers are Chechens, adding an ideological motivation. But the Russian Maf could also be acting as a body shop for AQ.
he didnt mention that specifically, but since FSB recruited all over the USSR, one can only assume that some would be Chechens.
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