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posted by mrpg on Friday January 20 2017, @08:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the squirrels-are-coming dept.

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


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  • (Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Friday January 20 2017, @02:57PM

    by Kromagv0 (1825) on Friday January 20 2017, @02:57PM (#456551) Homepage

    The sound from one of these [amazon.com] seems to keep the squirrels away at my house. Also works on the opossums and rabbits that come around from time to time.

    --
    T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by dry on Saturday January 21 2017, @02:26AM

    by dry (223) on Saturday January 21 2017, @02:26AM (#456822) Journal

    I've tried similar, the dog hated it.