FBI: Renewable energy systems vulnerable to cyber attacks


The FBI has issued an official alert to the public about the potential for malicious cyber actors to disrupt power generation, steal intellectual property, or hold critical information for ransom within the U.S. renewable energy sector.

The warning comes as federal and local governments increasingly advocate for renewable energies, expanding the industry and creating more opportunities for cyber threats. According to the FBI, a 2019 incident underscored these risks when a private company lost visibility into approximately 500 megawatts of its wind and photovoltaic sites across California, Utah, and Wyoming due to a denial-of-service attack exploiting an unpatched firewall.

Read more…
Source: MSN News


Sign up for our Newsletter


Related:

  • Cloud, cars and IoT could change grid cybersecurity

    November 6, 2018

    The proliferation of connected devices including electric cars could provide grid operators with an operational view of cybersecurity threats and change the way the grid is secured, said Karen Evans, assistant secretary of the Energy Department’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response. While experts generally consider the internet of things to be a risky ...

  • Hackers obtain nuclear power plant plans in France

    November 2, 2018

    Thousands of sensitive documents pertaining to nuclear power plants, prisons and tram networks have been stolen from the servers of a French company in a cyberattack, German and French media have reported Friday. The data illegally accessed from the French company Ingerop back in June amounted to more than 65 gigabytes, according to reports by German ...

  • Utilities, Energy Sector Attacked Mainly Via IT, Not ICS

    November 1, 2018

    Stealing administrative credentials to carry out months-long spy campaigns is a top threat. While industrial control systems (ICS) are the most talked-about when it comes to cyberattacks against energy and utilities firms, most attacks actually take aim at the enterprise IT networks used by these organizations, rather than critical infrastructure itself. The Vectra 2018 Spotlight Report on Energy and ...

  • Industry backs Norway’s AI powerhouse project

    October 2, 2018

    Norway is stepping up its efforts in the rapidly evolving and increasingly commercial artificial intelligence (AI) sector. Participants in the latest programme want to reduce the country’s reliance on oil revenues by tapping into AI opportunities in its growing technology sector. Norway has traditionally played a junior role in the context of Nordic technology development, investment and ...

  • An insider view of a cybersecurity training workshop for employees of Europe’s transmission system operators.

    October 1, 2018

    After the hackers had stealthily accessed the SCADA system and blew the transformer with a loud bang, the defenceless employees had no option but to remove the control plugs and manually turn the machine back on. “That’s what they had to do in Ukraine,” said Michael John, Director of Operations at the European Network for Cybersecurity (ENCS), referring to the world’s ...

  • Cyber security threat to Britain’s oil and gas sites as attack could cause ‘unprecedented damage’

    August 17, 2018

    Brian Lord OBE says a successful attack on its infrastructure could cause “unprecedented damage” and “unrest across the world”. With a complex ecosystem of computation, networking, and physical operational processes spread around the world the industry has a large attack surface with many attack vectors. A typical large oil and gas company uses half a million processors ...