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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 dry on Saturday January 21 2017, @02:53AM

    by dry (223) on Saturday January 21 2017, @02:53AM (#456829) Journal

    Well the last one that made the news here was a Bald Eagle, so obviously it's an American plot.

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