The most destructive hackers of critical U.S. infrastructure don’t come from Russia or China. They aren’t malicious kids with too much free time. They aren’t even human; they’re squirrels.
Wire-chewing rodents and other animals cause an estimated 200 U.S. power outages a year. The current tally for cyberattack-induced power disruptions is zero. And yet security experts agree that the computer systems controlling the electrical power grid, water treatment and control facilities, and gas and oil pipelines are extremely vulnerable to cyberattacks.
In “industrial control systems,” says Dan Scali, senior manager of industrial control systems at the Mandiant division of security company FireEye, there are often “bugs and flaws in the software the manufacturer wrote, [and] in how the software handles communication. There’s a lack of authentication, lack of encryption. These things we take for granted with our bank.”
An attack on the Ukrainian power grid earlier this year, the first known successful hacker takedown of a power grid, put a spotlight on infrastructure vulnerabilities. It also prompted many to ask why we haven’t seen a major cyberattack against critical U.S. infrastructure systems.
Read More Why haven’t hackers taken down the power grid? - The Parallax
Wire-chewing rodents and other animals cause an estimated 200 U.S. power outages a year. The current tally for cyberattack-induced power disruptions is zero. And yet security experts agree that the computer systems controlling the electrical power grid, water treatment and control facilities, and gas and oil pipelines are extremely vulnerable to cyberattacks.
In “industrial control systems,” says Dan Scali, senior manager of industrial control systems at the Mandiant division of security company FireEye, there are often “bugs and flaws in the software the manufacturer wrote, [and] in how the software handles communication. There’s a lack of authentication, lack of encryption. These things we take for granted with our bank.”
An attack on the Ukrainian power grid earlier this year, the first known successful hacker takedown of a power grid, put a spotlight on infrastructure vulnerabilities. It also prompted many to ask why we haven’t seen a major cyberattack against critical U.S. infrastructure systems.
Read More Why haven’t hackers taken down the power grid? - The Parallax
![[correlate]](/data/avatars/s/79/79653.jpg?1556985072){kind=avatar}