Hackers Cut Power Grid, says CIA

[babyoh]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,141564-c,hackers/article.html

EEESH, anybody else hear about this?
*GULP* how can i protect my little PC, when hackers are able to cut power to cities...?

Robert McMillan, IDG News Service
Saturday, January 19, 2008 6:00 AM PST

Criminals have been able to hack into computer systems via the Internet and cut power to several cities, a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency analyst said this week.

Speaking at a conference of security professionals on Wednesday, CIA analyst Tom Donahue disclosed the recently declassified attacks while offering few specifics on what actually went wrong.

Criminals have launched online attacks that disrupted power equipment in several regions outside of the U.S., he said, without identifying the countries affected. The goal of the attacks was extortion, he said.

"We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands," he said in a statement posted to the Web on Friday by the conference's organizers, the SANS Institute. "In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet."

"According to Mr. Donahue, the CIA actively and thoroughly considered the benefits and risks of making this information public, and came down on the side of disclosure," SANS said in the statement.

One conference attendee said the disclosure came as news to many of the government and industry security professionals in attendance. "It appeared that there were a lot of people who didn't know this already," said the attendee, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak with the press.

He confirmed SANS' report of the talk. "There were apparently a couple of incidents where extortionists cut off power to several cities using some sort of attack on the power grid, and it does not appear to be a physical attack," he said.

Hacking the power grid made front-page headlines in September when CNN aired a video showing an Idaho National Laboratory demonstration of a software attack on the computer system used to control a power generator. In the demonstration, the smoking generator was rendered inoperable.

The U.S. is taking steps to lock down the computers that manage its power systems, however.

On Thursday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved new mandatory standards designed to improve cybersecurity.

CIA representatives could not be reached immediately for comment.

[Ripley]

anybody else hear about this?

Nope, news to me. 

I followed the article's reference to the "conference"...

http://www.sans.org/scada08_summit/

Reviewing the 10 questions posed at the conference, the representation in the organizing committee, and the discussions going on in the keynote panels, a home computer user as myself can only hope some of these discussions...as well as security precautions are trickling down to the possible vulnerable facility, industrial or infrastructure process, that if disrupted, would effect me.

In the meanwhile, "protecting my little pc" has been going pretty good so far following some of the advice/topics at LandzDown.