Yeah, they *could* do that...

I’ve omitted a phrase from the following quote.  Care to hazard a guess what it is?

The decades-old technology used to manage the power grid is vulnerable to manipulation or sabotage, according to a study revealed this week.

Attackers could manipulate power-grid data [...] used by grid operators to set prices for electricity and to balance supply and demand, the researchers say. Grid hackers could make millions of dollars at the expense of electricity consumers by influencing electricity markets. They could also make the grid unstable, causing blackouts. - MIT’s Technology Review

If the tone is familiar, perhaps you’re recalling last year’s agitation by supporters of the S.773/S.778 “Cybergrab” bills (still pending) that would massively expand presidential power over “critical information networks” in the name of national “security.”  So here comes another study that’s found network vunerabilities that (of course) must be addressed with federal legislation?

Well, not exactly.  Here’s the phrase that I stripped out:

... by breaking into substations and intercepting communications between substations...

Now I’m all in favor of taking care to transmit sensitive data over secure (isolated) networks using secure protocols, but seriously: If you have “hackers” breaking into to your facilities, you have a far bigger problem than whether you’re using encryption or not.

After all, physical access to the machinery means you can do a lot of things.  Like substituting made-for-tv movies for football games, for instance.


(The article does make the point that increased reliance on remote controls and automation to replace on-site human operators will make data-tampering (and other mischief) harder to detect and less likely to be discovered, but, duh, we already knew that.)

UPDATE, related (101013):

Original link via Insty.

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 22:27:19 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 290 words, total size 5 kb.