11 replies to this topic

[Lyon2]

News Title: Foreign Spies Hacked into the U.S. Electricity Grid

News Description: This allegde foreign spies hacked the US electricity grid could be in fact foreign, but they could have been domestic too, us citizens i mean, if not, we are looking to a highly possible threat against the security status of the United States of America.

Day of the Event: Last wednesday

Source Link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10214898...tml?tag=nl.e703

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Here is a quote of the news content:

Quote

Spies from other countries have hacked into the United States' electricity grid, leaving traces of their activity and raising concerns over the security of the U.S. energy infrastructure to cyberattacks.

The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday published a report saying that spies sought ways to navigate and control the power grid as well as the water and sewage infrastructure. It's part of a rising number of intrusions, the article said, quoting former and current national security officials.

The intruders don't appear to have done any damage to date but did leave behind software that could disrupt the system.

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From what i read and know, if you hack successfuly to a country's electricity grid, you can really damage it quite well and effectively, because lets get to the point, without electricity, which is power, we could not do pretty much a very big percentage of things we normally do on a daily basis, including eating, having light at night, the computers would fail because they would not have power, et cetera.

But not only, if they somehow managed to leave a software or whatever successfuly in the grid, and if nobody sees it in time, the water suply could also be at risk, as well as many other infrastructures which need electricity/power to run effectvely, don't you think?

So if you are a US citizen, i guess you must pay atention to this news, to see if things are and will be in fact controled and managed and secured on the short, medium and long run/term, that's my advice.

[OpaQue]

I agree with your point, Breaking inside United States' electricity grid should be of very big concern for the security of the U.S. energy infrastructure. But I doubt; If spies from other country who successfully managed to break in, that too till a point it becomes a concern, then what is stopping them?

I wonder what all damage can be done with powers to navigate and control the power grid as well as the water and sewage infrastructure.

[jlhaslip]

Well, just a guess on my part, but most of the 'critical' Power users would have an emergency or stand-by power supply.
Hospitals, NORAD, and the bulk of the Internet Data Centres would all have the potential to be 'off the grid', so to speak. At least short term.

Internet users? Well, that is another issue...

[rpgsearcherz]

Well, this is what happens when everything is run on computers. These days we could not live without computers. They run our utilities, they run our phones, they run our bank accounts, everything.

And the pure nature of computers makes them unsafe in terms of being "unhackable." If someone can make something, another person can crack it. That's just how it is.

So in terms of the electricity grid...I mean there's nothing you can do to stop people from hacking and/or cracking their way into the servers that run it. It just reminds me of the guy who was relaxing at his house and "hacked" into NASA's top-secret network because one of their computers had the default password on it(go figure)...

All we can do is hope nobody really exploits their ability to control us via our central necessity(electricity).

[Lyon2]

I think that a country can be brought to its knees if the terrotists get a hold on the power grid, because nothing runs without the power grid, pretty much nothing, and how can you protect your computers if you do not have power to run the security programs along with the hardware programs which also needs power to run, do you actually see now the potential harm terrorists can do?

They must know about this information now, and they will do whtever necessary, at all means necessary, to bring us power grid/grids down, perhaps with C4, or other explosive materials, does not matter, if things do not get upgraded as they already should have been, they will in fact succeed.

I hope your serenity and trust in your US system, infrastructures, and security policies, but i guess is best not to forget the past, like the 9/11 for instance, where impossible events took place, but know you beleave it is true, it happened because they did not do a damn thing to stop it, even with the tips/informtion they received, including one tip they received in the same day that those attacks were about to happen.

Edited by Lyon2, 10 April 2009 - 08:09 AM.

[varalu]

Lyon2, on Apr 10 2009, 01:20 AM, said:

News Title: Foreign Spies Hacked into the U.S. Electricity Grid

News Description: This allegde foreign spies hacked the US electricity grid could be in fact foreign, but they could have been domestic too, us citizens i mean, if not, we are looking to a highly possible threat against the security status of the United States of America.

Day of the Event: Last wednesday

Source Link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10214898...tml?tag=nl.e703

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Here is a quote of the news content:





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From what i read and know, if you hack successfuly to a country's electricity grid, you can really damage it quite well and effectively, because lets get to the point, without electricity, which is power, we could not do pretty much a very big percentage of things we normally do on a daily basis, including eating, having light at night, the computers would fail because they would not have power, et cetera.

But not only, if they somehow managed to leave a software or whatever successfuly in the grid, and if nobody sees it in time, the water suply could also be at risk, as well as many other infrastructures which need electricity/power to run effectvely, don't you think?

So if you are a US citizen, i guess you must pay atention to this news, to see if things are and will be in fact controled and managed and secured on the short, medium and long run/term, that's my advice.

Its a critical issue and a major concern US has to address at the earliest. The scope for exploiting such loop holes are very very high and its the responsibility of the authorities to zero in the issues and avoid such attacks/ intrusions in the future. More the automation happens in all areas more the need for security.

It does not tell, who attempted the hack. But its better to prevent it at the earliest.

[Jeune]

Do you guys watch the current season of 24? The bad guys in that season could do just exactly that. They were able to breach the firewall which protects the infrastructure of the U.S. (water, electricity grids etc. ) That is until Jack Bauer got to them! LOL )

I have always thought that the things I watched in 24 would be unthinkable in real life but no.

[rayzoredge]

I was just reading about how the power grid has and is moving on to being a "smart" infrastructure where it can be accessed remotely by workers via the Internet.

Think about that for a second.

It's a wonder how frightfully easily the power grid for the United States can be hacked into and toyed with. A lot of our electrical systems are automated by computers and software, and apparently the software themselves are not very secure as anyone can hack into the grid and insert malicious code or even take complete control of it.

What doesn't make any sense is why we are moving it from a private network onto a globally-accessible network. The world wide web is a clear indication by name that it would be a bad idea to move from a controlled environment to one that any Joe Schmoe can access... and given the adage that security is just a deterrent and only slows down perpetual attackers, anyone with the knowledge and skill can hack into the power grid and toy with it at will.

Since the world can't even control the propagation of a worm that affects Windows machines that Microsoft even threw out a patch for back in October, how the heck is the U.S. going to keep control of its own power grid and keep it safe from outside, unauthorized access?

This is proof here that we as a country are again being arrogant in the fact that we are not fallible. The attacks on September 11th proved us wrong with our physical security. And again, proven now, we are waking up to the crude reality that we are still not ready on an electronic security level. (School of hard knocks... because, apparently, no one learns the easy way.)

I'm sure savvy hackers within the nation now are tweaking their own "smart" meters to lower their electricity bills.

[rpgsearcherz]

rayzoredge, on Apr 10 2009, 01:09 PM, said:

I was just reading about how the power grid has and is moving on to being a "smart" infrastructure where it can be accessed remotely by workers via the Internet.

Think about that for a second.

It's a wonder how frightfully easily the power grid for the United States can be hacked into and toyed with. A lot of our electrical systems are automated by computers and software, and apparently the software themselves are not very secure as anyone can hack into the grid and insert malicious code or even take complete control of it.

What doesn't make any sense is why we are moving it from a private network onto a globally-accessible network. The world wide web is a clear indication by name that it would be a bad idea to move from a controlled environment to one that any Joe Schmoe can access... and given the adage that security is just a deterrent and only slows down perpetual attackers, anyone with the knowledge and skill can hack into the power grid and toy with it at will.

Since the world can't even control the propagation of a worm that affects Windows machines that Microsoft even threw out a patch for back in October, how the heck is the U.S. going to keep control of its own power grid and keep it safe from outside, unauthorized access?

This is proof here that we as a country are again being arrogant in the fact that we are not fallible. The attacks on September 11th proved us wrong with our physical security. And again, proven now, we are waking up to the crude reality that we are still not ready on an electronic security level. (School of hard knocks... because, apparently, no one learns the easy way.)

I'm sure savvy hackers within the nation now are tweaking their own "smart" meters to lower their electricity bills.

Really I don't think the change will make *too much* of a difference. I mean if you think about it....The USA has had, has, and always will have terrorists. People always bring up this "9/11" situation and claim it was the beginning of terrorism.

First of all, it wasn't the first time the Al'Quaeda(Spelling?) attacked the World Trade Center. They tried 10 years before 9/11 and placed a bomb in the bottom of the building. The only reason it wasn't such a "big deal" is because it barely did any damage(they wanted to crash it from the basement up).

Second of all, we have a LOT of domestic terrorists. Take the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City for example, with Timothy Mcveigh(spelling?). That is an example of a terrorist, and he was American.



So no matter what the situation is, people will always want to do damage to us, whether it be enemies of the United States, crazy people, or whatever. It's going to happen.


So following along with that view, you have to consider that both foreign terrorist organizations, as well as domestic ones, have people who hold high places in office(political), businesses, etc. I'm not gullible enough to believe that there isn't at least one terrorist of some type working at our power grids to begin with.

Making the grid accessible to "outside" access will obviously bring about more people who may try to get in, if nothing else for the personal knowledge or for bragging rights, but whether it's accessible to the outside or not there are still people who can take it down.

The only true way to fix the vulnerability is to start living without the complete dependence on electricity. And as we all know, that's not going to happen.

[Lyon2]

I too love the 24 series, i watched it since serie 1, and i say the last episode 2 days ago or something, jack bauher still rules and kicks *bottom* there, so i guess we will be seeing him preventing terrorists attacks for a long time still.

The 9/11 tragedy was an example, i am lot more informed and well informed then that, i follow terrorists attacks, specially here in europe which is where i live.

The security can be upgraded and developed, we do not need another source powerin order to deffend ourselfs from our enemies and terrorists, if a system is good, even if it is close to perfect, we should always try to improve, but in this case, it is way far then perfect, everyone can access it pretty much, with computer/hacking skills, and their infrastructure must also be upgraded to a more secure one according to what i read.