The real threat to global critical infrastructure is not enemy states or organisations but squirrels.
Cris Thomas has been tracking power cuts caused by animals since 2013.
Squirrels, birds, rats and snakes have been responsible for more than 1,700 power cuts affecting nearly 5 million people, he told a security conference.
He explained that by tracking these issues, he was seeking to dispel the hype around cyber-attacks.
His Cyber Squirrel 1 project was set up to counteract what he called the "ludicrousness of cyber-war claims by people at high levels in government and industry", he told the audience at the Shmoocon security conference in Washington.
Squirrels topped the list with 879 "attacks", followed by:
- birds - 434
- snakes - 83
- raccoons - 72
- rats - 36
- martens - 22
- frogs - three
He concludes that the damage done by real cyber-attacks - Stuxnet's destruction of Iranian uranium enrichment centrifuges and disruption to Ukrainian power plants being the most high profile - was tiny compared to the "cyber-threat" posed by animals.
Also at Arstechnica
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Bot on Friday January 20 2017, @09:43AM
a determined agent/terrorist can do too, never mind an accident/disaster.
So you design critical infrastructure taking into account just that. Sometimes it is cheaper to lay down two cables and a diesel generator instead of having one coated with kevlar.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2017, @09:45AM
Both of your cables are tasty, you cheap bastard, I'm chewing both of them. Redundancy is not the answer.