German wind turbines, the war in Ukraine and the broken satellite communication

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Content source

https://borncity.com/win/2022/03/01/deutsche-windrder-der-krieg-in-der-ukraine-und-der-ausfall-der-satellitenverbindung/

It does not seem to be a coincidence: On February 24, 2022, the Russian invasion of Ukraine began – and on that early morning satellite communication for thousands of wind turbines in Europe failed. The background is that communication with the KA-SAT satellite network is disrupted. The wind turbines are still producing electricity, but can no longer be controlled remotely via this satellite link for maintenance. There are indications of a cyber attack.

The outage took place between five and six o'clock in the morning of February 24, 2022, according to this German article. German site Golem has already published some information from the operator of the KA-SAT service on Sunday. Viasat told its partners in an email the following:

This appears to have initially started with the KA-SAT service in Ukraine and then spread across almost the entire KA-SAT footprint. The outage is associated with a suspicious event that began at 4 a.m. UTC (Universal Time) on February 24. We continue to analyze our systems to identify the root cause and are taking additional network and security precautions to prevent further impact.

Currently, security specialists are investigating the incident. There does not appear to be a short-term solution – it is believed in security circles that the disruption may be related to a cyberattack on a ground station in Ukraine.