ELECTRICAL GRID IS VULNERABLE TO HACKERS

Jim Krane, AP Technology writer, has put together this piece for InformationWeek detailing some of the reasons why the electrical grid is becoming increasingly more vulnerable to computer hacking.

Since last month's Northeast blackout, utilities have accelerated plans to automate the electric grid, replacing aging monitoring systems with digital switches and other high-tech gear.

But those very improvements are making the electricity supply vulnerable to a different kind of peril: computer viruses and hackers who could black out substations, cities, or entire states.

Researchers working for the U.S., Canadian, and British governments have already sniffed out "back doors" in the digital relays and control-room technology that increasingly direct electricity flow in North America.[and]

"I know enough about where the holes are," said Eric Byres, a cybersecurity researcher for critical infrastructure at the British Columbia Institute of Technology in Vancouver. "My team and I could shut down the grid. Not the whole North American grid, but a state, sure."

Interjecting, shutting down the grid in one state would dramatically impact the ability to supply power in adjacent states, possibly causing a cascade of shutdowns. Continuing:

The Blaster worm that flummoxed an estimated half-million computers around the world last month might have exacerbated utilities' problems during the August blackout, bringing down--or perhaps blocking communications--on computers used to monitor the grid, said Joe Weiss, a utility control system expert.

"It didn't cause what happened, but it could've exacerbated what happened," said Weiss, with Kema Consulting in Cupertino, Calif. The blackout followed the Aug. 11 Blaster outbreak by just three days.

The Ohio utility that is the chief focus of the blackout investigation, FirstEnergy Corp., is investigating whether the Blaster worm might have caused computer trouble that was described on telephone transcripts as hampering its response to multiple power line failures.

I'm sure the experts are immersed in the problem. Having been one of the population affected by the August 14th blackout, this issue is of interest to me. It seems logical that an event of the blackout's magnitude probably had many contributing causal factors. I believe inadequate maintenance, inadequate procedures and training, along with unanticipated equipment failures, were also contributing factors. Yet, somehow I can't shake the notion that computer hooliganism may have been a major factor.

Read the whole informative article here.