Electric Utility Grid Compromised by Malware

[Delicieuxz]

Apparently, this is just some old malware that is available on the internet for anyone to obtain.

 

 

 

 

 

Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost Again: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid

Washington Post Caught Spreading More Fake News About "Russian Hackers"

 

 

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

Complete bullshit actual fake news story.

nothing was compromised.

it was just porn malware on one guys computer.

thats fucking it. 

Malware that millions of others have.

[Dabombinable]

3 minutes ago, HughMungusCynicalAnarch said:

Complete bullshit actual fake news story.

nothing was compromised.

it was just porn malware on one guys computer.

thats fucking it. 

Malware that millions of others have.

And malware that makes me hesitant to work on some computers. Because if its on there, you know that the HDD has some NSFW content.

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

And malware that makes me hesitant to work on some computers. Because if its on there, you know that the HDD has some NSFW content.

 

1 hour ago, Delicieuxz said:

Apparently, this is just some old malware that is available on the internet for anyone to obtain.

 

 

 

 

 

Russia Hysteria Infects WashPost Again: False Story About Hacking U.S. Electric Grid

Washington Post Caught Spreading More Fake News About "Russian Hackers"

 

 

Why couldn't mcafee become president? Or even get into the debates? He's better than trump in almost every way and definitely more entertaining and meme worthy.

id argue he's even more famous given hes the founder of mcafee software.

[straight_stewie]

On 12/30/2016 at 7:43 PM, ionbasa said:

A power utility in Vermont, U.S has recently been compromised by a cyberattack. The malware was found on utility control systems.

Quote

 

A code associated with the Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe by the Obama administration has been detected within the system of a Vermont utility, according to U.S. officials.

While the Russians did not actively use the code to disrupt operations of the utility, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss a security matter, the penetration of the nation’s electrical grid is significant because it represents a potentially serious vulnerability. Government and utility industry officials regularly monitor the nation’s electrical grid because it is highly computerized and any disruptions can have disastrous implications for the function of medical and emergency services.

American officials, including one senior administration official, said they are not yet sure what the intentions of the Russians might have been. The penetration may have been designed to disrupt the utility’s operations or as a test by the Russians to see whether they could penetrate a portion of the grid.

Federal officials have shared the malware code used in Grizzly Steppe with utility executives nationwide, a senior administration official said, and Vermont utility officials identified it within their operations.

Here's the FBI report that the article references:
https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JAR_16-20296A_GRIZZLY STEPPE-2016-1229.pdf

The funniest part of this obvious bag of lies is that some of the "alternate names" the JAR report lists for APT 28/29 (Grizzly Steppe) are known to be NSA programs released by Snowden/Wikileaks.

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

I am curious why nobody as yet done what I described. 

It wouldn't be that hard to get thousands of sleeper agents into the us.

given our border security problem all of them could Ben recruited from South American countries.

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

They'd have no background to speak of.

they could be orphaned children from various South American countries selected and trained from birth for just such an operation and then be planted into the us over let's say a decade. 

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, HughMungusCynicalAnarch said:

They'd have no background to speak of.

they could be orphaned children from various South American countries selected and trained from birth for just such an operation and then be planted into the us over let's say a decade. 

Lol, try Germany, the country that thought it was a good idea to open its borders.

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

That reminds, why isn't our power grid safe guarded against an emp? 

[2FA]

3 minutes ago, HughMungusCynicalAnarch said:

That reminds, why isn't our power grid safe guarded against an emp? 

The amount of shielding required would be astronomical in costs and would require equipment to be much larger.

[DutchTexan]

On 12/30/2016 at 8:03 PM, DeadEyePsycho said:

 

I watched the whole thing. It looks like a dozen dudes with some pull wires, thin pieces of metal, an rc drone, an $8 rfid reader/card printer and a couple raspberry pi's can do just about anything...

[iamdarkyoshi]

15 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

They still use the giant floppy disks in their nuclear program. Imagine how outdated the computers used to control the power grid are.

Wonder if the password system is as secure as the windows 95 logon screen

[Guest Kloaked]

1 minute ago, DutchTexan said:

I watched the whole thing. It looks like a dozen dudes with some pull wires, thin pieces of metal, an rc drone, an $8 rfid reader/card printer and a couple raspberry pi's can do just about anything...

And here I thought i just needed some cheap smartphone and press Q to hack like you do in Watch_Dogs.

[2FA]

12 minutes ago, DutchTexan said:

I watched the whole thing. It looks like a dozen dudes with some pull wires, thin pieces of metal, an rc drone, an $8 rfid reader/card printer and a couple raspberry pi's can do just about anything...

That is why physical security is just as important as software security. Really they should switch to biometrics (which can be expensive depending on which type) and improve their security policies as well as personnel training. Most of it though is just a lack of proper training which is almost always the weak point in all organizations.

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

16 minutes ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

The amount of shielding required would be astronomical in costs and would require equipment to be much larger.

 And a solar flare would cost trillions, that's even if the usa would Be standing here.

it would cost half a trillions to do this and isn't well worth it.

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

Just now, DeadEyePsycho said:

That is why physical security is just as important as software security. Really they should switch to biometrics (which can be expensive depending on which type) and improve their security policies as well as personnel training. Most of it though is just a lack of proper training which is almost always the weak point in all organizations.

Refer to my comment on the physical aspect of things.

[2FA]

1 minute ago, HughMungusCynicalAnarch said:

 And a solar flare would cost trillions, that's even if the usa would Be standing here.

it would cost half a trillions to do this and isn't well worth it.

There is a higher chance of a asteroid wiping out all life on Earth than there is of a solar flare strong enough to wipe out all electronics.

 

Power companies are privately sector in the US and as such are motivated by profit. That amount of shielding required would not yield a return on investment.

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

1 minute ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

There is a higher chance of a asteroid wiping out all life on Earth than there is of a solar flare strong enough to wipe out all electronics.

 

Power companies are privately sector in the US and as such are motivated by profit. That amount of shielding required would not yield a return on investment.

LOL what? There are solar flares daily, also are you familiar with the carrington event? Also what about artificial emps from nuclear weapons detonated in the ionosphere?

[2FA]

19 minutes ago, HughMungusCynicalAnarch said:

LOL what? There are solar flares daily, also are you familiar with the carrington event? Also what about artificial emps from nuclear weapons detonated in the ionosphere?

Those solar flares are weak and at most add slight interference to radio communication. A flare strong enough to actually permanently damage electronics has an extremely small chance of happening. Even if an solar event strong enough was to take place, we would have roughly 20 hours notice since the damaging clouds of particles takes days to travel from the Sun to the Earth. That time could be used to take transformers large transformers offline which would greatly lessen the impact of such an event.

 

EMPs from nuclear devices aren't big enough to wipe out electronics across a broad area, if anything nuclear fallout would have a bigger impact. Many missiles would have to be launched for one to make it through the US's missile defenses and by that time, nuclear war would have already broken out meaning the possible EMP is least of your concerns.

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

5 minutes ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

Those solar flares are weak and at most add slight interference to radio communication. A flare strong enough to actually permanently damage electronics has an extremely small chance of happening. Even if an solar event strong enough was to take place, we would have roughly 20 hours notice since the damaging clouds of particles takes days to travel from the Sun to the Earth. That time could be used to take transformers large transformers offline which would greatly lessen the impact of such an event.

 

EMPs from nuclear devices aren't big enough to wipe out electronics across a broad area, if anything nuclear fallout would have a bigger impact. Many missiles would have to be launched for one to make it through the US's missile defenses and by that time, nuclear war would have already broken out meaning the possible EMP is least of your concerns.

Yes and large events happen every couple of centuries or so and we're Due for one.

 

uhh no.

only one relatively large nuclear weapon in high atmosphere over the us would be enough to destroy electronics. 

Operation starfish prime proved this.

[2FA]

2 minutes ago, HughMungusCynicalAnarch said:

Yes and large events happen every couple of centuries or so and we're Due for one.

 

uhh no.

only one relatively large nuclear weapon in high atmosphere over the us would be enough to destroy electronics. 

Operation starfish prime proved this.

Fine, I admit I was wrong about the EMP size but my other points on the subject are still valid.

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

8 minutes ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

Fine, I admit I was wrong about the EMP size but my other points on the subject are still valid.

And so are mine.

an emp or solar flare would cost trillions and its been estimated 90 percent of the us would die if there was a year without electricity. 

 

And again were due for a large solar flare, it will happen.

[DutchTexan]

11 minutes ago, HughMungusCynicalAnarch said:

 

20 minutes ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

 

I think the important thing to think about is how connected the entire county is via electricity. American industry would just flat out stop without electric everything. Regardless of what caused the cease of electricity.

 

Now, I think the important thing to think about is how people die every black Friday. If people die for the last TV on sale, imagine what would happen if there was no more food for sale.

 

[Orangeator]

6 hours ago, HughMungusCynicalAnarch said:

I'm surprised this hasn't been done before by the ussr of china quite frankly.

That's due to the dozen countries we have nuclear missiles in, that are in range of China... Also, China wouldn't have much of an economy without the US.

 

Edit: Also knowing how dominate Trump is, I don't think anyone will be trying anything against the US for the next 4 years. Remember, presidents can have "wars" without congress... A lot can happen before congress can assemble and vote on the presidents decisions.

[AresKrieger]

I like how people assume the US has a single grid, or that the grid is US specific

Also states have an even more subdivided grid, my state NH could isolate itself from the other NE states if it needed to due to power fluctuations, in otherwords you can't hack the entire US grid, you can however hack numerous grids that reside in or around the US