Utilities

  • In County Crippled by Hurricane, Water Utility Targeted in Ransomware Attack

    October 15, 2018

    The Emotet Trojan is behind a crippling ransomware attack that hit the Onslow Water and Sewer Authority. A “critical water utility” has been targeted in a recent ransomware attack, significantly impeding its ability to provide service in the week after Hurricane Florence hit the East Coast of the U.S. The Onslow Water and Sewer Authority (ONWASA) said ...

  • Major Irish utility networks vulnerable to cyber attacks set to have security increased

    September 19, 2018

    Our water supplies, electricity and gas grids and phone networks are all vulnerable to cyber-attacks from tech-terrorists and are about to have their security beefed-up. That is because all of our utilities and essential State services are in some way or another reliant on digital technology, which in turn makes them vulnerable to digital attack. Minister Denis ...

  • Poor cybersecurity could destabilise increasingly complex energy grids

    July 26, 2018

    The future of smart energy grids, with automatic management of both supply and demand, is “looking really interesting”, says Phil Kernick, chief technology officer at security firm CQR Consulting. But the current state of the technology and its security is a problem. “The distribution systems and the generation systems were deployed a decade and a half ...

  • No big deal… Kremlin hackers ‘jumped air-gapped networks’ to pwn US power utilities

    July 24, 2018

      The US Department of Homeland Security is once again accusing Russian government hackers of penetrating America’s critical infrastructure. Uncle Sam’s finest reckon Moscow’s agents managed to infiltrate computers networks within US electric utilities – to the point where the miscreants could have virtually pressed the off switch in control rooms, yanked the plug on the Yanks, ...

  • Smart meters could leave British homes vulnerable to cyber attacks, experts have warned

    February 18, 2018

    New smart energy meters that the Government wants to be installed in millions of homes will leave householders vulnerable to cyber attacks, ministers have been warned. The intelligence agency GCHQ is said to have raised concerns over the security of the meters, which could enable hackers to steal personal details and defraud consumers by tampering with ...

  • Utilities ill-equipped to face increasingly disparate cybersecurity threat

    January 31, 2018

    All utilities organizations surveyed in the latest EY Power and Utilities Global Information Security Survey 2017-18 (GISS): Why wait for a cyber catastrophe to prepare for a cyber attack?, say that their cybersecurity function does not meet their needs. The survey also finds that 58% of sector respondents anticipate difficulties in monitoring the perimeter of their ...