SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1937
Nation-sponsored hackers have penetrated the operational networks multiple US and European energy companies use to control key parts of the power grid that supplies electricity to hundreds of millions of people, researchers warned Wednesday.
The incursions detected by security firm Symantec represent a dramatic escalation by a hacking group dubbed Dragonfly, which has been waging attacks against US and European energy companies since at least 2011. In 2014, Symantec reported that Dragonfly was aggressively establishing beachheads in a limited number of target networks, mainly by stealing the user names and passwords used to restrict access to legitimate personnel. Over the past year, the hacking group has managed to compromise dozens of energy firms and, in a handful of cases, install backdoors in the highly sensitive networks the firms use to supply power to the grid.
[...] After this Ars post went live, several security professionals with expertise in electric grids downplayed the likelihood of the operational network compromises being used to cause blackouts or take down parts of the grid. Robert Lee, the founder and CEO of Dragos Security, said the hackers would need more than the mere ability to control human machine interfaces that flip switches and open and close breakers. While he said an attack that mimicked the techniques that disrupted Ukrainian power in 2015 was possible, he said differences in the US grid would make those tactics much less effective.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Monday September 11 2017, @09:33AM (11 children)
> true, they may last a few days more with some portable generators - until their fuel runs out because they can't buy some more without comms
Some of the rich have their own hydroelectric power stations (I've seen them), because they are rich enough to buy land with rivers and lakes on them, then hire people to build and maintain the plant. They will be good for a long time with one of those.
If I had the money, I would do the same quite frankly.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Monday September 11 2017, @04:37PM (7 children)
Seriously, how long do you think that power structure will last once things really go bad? Flipped on it's head in 30 days or less.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Monday September 11 2017, @11:22PM (6 children)
Well, generally hydropower plants can produce power for as long as they are maintained and there is water.
In the cases of large scale hydro you are looking at scheduled preventative maintenance every 3-5 years. For personal hydro plants can expect something in the region of 5-8 years, but even then if things are very bad you can skip the scheduled maintenance and run as long as you can (if you reduce your load enough you can probably reduce wear and increase running time by magnitudes).
The typical lifecycle of a hydro plant is a lot longer, some have gone on for an excess of a century (unless there are structural faults or damage due to human error).
Either way, you are talking a hell of a lot longer than 30 days.
(Of course, not excluding sabotage, deliberate destruction by others, etc... but most of these people live far away from the masses, and most people don't even know who they are, or where they live, so a bit of security by obscurity)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 11 2017, @11:55PM (5 children)
most people don't even know who they are, or where they live, so a bit of security by obscurity
Someone didn't read the Equifax stories.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 12 2017, @08:37AM (4 children)
And someone won't be able to read those Equifax stories after the collapse either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @05:59AM (3 children)
I'll spell it out for you: a lot of people were doxxed.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 13 2017, @06:07AM (2 children)
And where will that information be stored?
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday September 13 2017, @12:07PM (1 child)
These databases are searchable. Follow the money. Who got paid. For what. Where.
If I were running away from a world of people I had wronged, going to my own "private" bunker to ride it out? That's like me screwing my neighbor then thinking I can go into my own house and close the door on him. If he's mad enough, little may stop him from getting his hands on a bulldozer, as if I wronged him of everything he had, he has nothing to lose, and he's really pissed at me, he is now apt to consider suicide which involves me as well.
Read the news. This kinda stuff happens all the time with wronged people. Hit 'em hard enough and they are coming back after you, even willing to pay the ultimate price.
One does not do people that way. History is full of examples of people who did this, and none came out to a very good end. Karma's a bitch.
This same paradigm scales from a neighborhood dispute to the fall of the Roman Empire.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 13 2017, @01:02PM
Only if you have the data and a way to search that data. Given that we've been bouncing around scenarios where having electric power is an unusual, temporary thing, I don't think we'd have to worry about a searchable database that no one has the technology to search.
I'm not similarly impressed. History isn't filled with this kind of thing despite your claim to the contrary.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday September 12 2017, @02:12AM (2 children)
Nothing some fishing nets or even some rope thrown close to the inlet tunnels won't "fix".
If you hire people to take care of it, I believe your cost is going to be somewhere around 10-100 times higher than the attackers' - pretty good candidate for attrition warfare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Tuesday September 12 2017, @09:02AM (1 child)
I was talking about being able to survive without public infrastructure and for how long, and how some people decided to build hydro power plants for long term power for themselves.
If we are talking about an active state of war, when people have located where you live and are deliberately attempting to destroy what you have, then yes, it wouldn't survive, like just about everything else. That is a given really, especially with something you can't move, hide, or protect from sabotage particularly easily.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday September 12 2017, @11:46AM
Apologies, I haven't noted the switch of the frame of reference away from the irresponsible people causing problems, like in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford