Experts warn hackers could shut down entire power grids by hijacking cloud accounts


Whenever an AI data center thinks really, really hard, it can increase its power consumption so much to trigger disruptions and possibly even blackouts and gear malfunctions. So, is it possible for a malicious actor to trigger this scenario deliberately, in order to cause physical harm?

Multiple researchers from the Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, wrote a research paper titled “Bit2Watt: A Cyber-Physical Vulnerability Exploiting GPU Workloads Across Power and Computing Infrastructures.”

In it, they claim that a malicious cloud tenant is, in theory, capable of launching GPU workloads so intensive that they cause physical damage.

Read more…
Source:  TechRadar News


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • SMS Phishing Attempts Are Riding the Presidential Election Wave

    October 30, 2020

    SMS-based outreach has become a standard in the political playbook, with candidates and their supporters soliciting financial support, opinions, and votes through texting with increasing frequency and sophistication. In the course of protecting enterprise endpoints, Symantec, a division of Broadcom, has turned up evidence of an increasingly prevalent scam tactic in the run-up to the ...

  • CISA, FBI, and CNMF Identify a New Malware Variant: ComRAT

    October 29, 2020

    The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Department of Defense Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF) have identified a malware variant—referred to as ComRAT—used by the Russian-sponsored advanced persistent threat (APT) actor Turla. In addition, U.S. Cyber Command has released the malware sample to the malware aggregation tool and ...

  • Oracle WebLogic Server RCE Flaw Under Active Attack

    October 29, 2020

    If an organization hasn’t updated their Oracle WebLogic servers to protect them against a recently disclosed RCE flaw, researchers have a dire warning: “Assume it has been compromised.” Oracle WebLogic Server is a popular application server used in building and deploying enterprise Java EE applications. The console component of the WebLogic Server has a flaw, CVE-2020-14882, ...

  • REvil ransomware gang claims over $100 million profit in a year

    October 29, 2020

    REvil ransomware developers say that they made more than $100 million in one year by extorting large businesses across the world from various sectors. They are driven by profit and want to make $2 billion from their ransomware service, adopting the most lucrative trends in their pursuit of wealth. Read more… Source: Bleeping Computer  

  • Hacker releases Georgia county’s election-related files

    October 29, 2020

    Hackers on Tuesday released a sample of stolen election-related documents from networks in Hall County, Ga., as part of their efforts to pressure county officials into paying a ransom for control of the files. The Wall Street Journal reported that the batch of files, which were largely administrative and nonsensitive in nature, came as part of ...

  • Brooklyn & Vermont hospitals are latest Ryuk ransomware victims

    October 29, 2020

    Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn and the University of Vermont Health Network are the latest victims of the Ryuk ransomware attack spree covering the healthcare industry across the U.S. Yesterday, the U.S. government hosted an emergency call with stakeholders in the healthcare industry to alert them to an “increased and imminent cybercrime threat to U.S. ...