Tag Archives: critical infrastructure

Three days before NC Transformer attack DHS issued an alert. Let’s pray protecting our electric grid becomes a priority

Important Takeaways:

  • Gun attacks on NC transformers expose threat to nation’s infrastructure
  • Just three days before two electrical substations were shot up, causing tens of thousands of customers to lose power in North Carolina, the federal Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin warning “lone offenders and small groups” could be plotting attacks and that the nation’s critical infrastructure was among the possible targets.
  • Here’s the link : https://www.dhs.gov/publication/national-terrorism-advisory-system-bulletin-november-30-2022-translations
  • The bulletin followed one issued by the Department of Homeland Security in January, warning that domestic extremists have been developing “credible, specific plans” to attack electricity infrastructure since at least 2020, according to the Associated Press.
  • [In Moore County] the attack has been described by local authorities as an “eye-opener” and prompted calls to harden the state’s infrastructure to deter future incidents.
  • But similar attacks and foiled plots suggest electrical grids and other infrastructure across the United States have been targeted over the past decade.
    • In April 2013, a group of suspects wielding high-powered rifles staged an attack in California’s Silicon Valley, shooting up the Pacific Gas & Electric Company’s Metcalf substation
    • In February, three men each pleaded guilty in Ohio to a federal charge of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists as part of a scheme to attack power grids in the United States in furtherance of white supremacist ideology, according to the Department of Justice
    • In 2019, a Utah man pleaded guilty to one federal count of destruction of an energy facility stemming from a 2016 rifle attack on a Buckskin Electrical substation in Kane County and was sentenced to 96 months in prison

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A Cyber-Attack on Any Critical Infrastructure could be Serious

Important Takeaways:

  • On the heels of sanctions, threats of cyber-attacks loom
  • Officials have been warning Americans of potential Russian cyber -attacks in retaliation to US imposed sanctions.
  • Cyber-attacks could include the targeting of critical infrastructure, pointing to the 2021 Colonial pipeline hack.
  • Brown said other crucial sectors that could also be targeted are those such as the financial sector, as banks have been preparing for cyber-attacks.
  • Mark Kleene, owner of MVK Financial Planning agreed, saying that having a cash [on hand] position wouldn’t hurt…

Read the original article by clicking here.

Iran hit by global cyber attack that left U.S. flag on screens

FILE PHOTO: A man types on a computer keyboard in front of the displayed cyber code in this illustration picture taken on March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File Photo

DUBAI (Reuters) – Hackers have attacked networks in a number of countries including data centers in Iran where they left the image of a U.S. flag on screens along with a warning: “Don’t mess with our elections”, the Iranian IT ministry said on Saturday.

“The attack apparently affected 200,000 router switches across the world in a widespread attack, including 3,500 switches in our country,” the Communication and Information Technology Ministry said in a statement carried by Iran’s official news agency IRNA.

The statement said the attack, which hit internet service providers and cut off web access for subscribers, was made possible by a vulnerability in routers from Cisco which had earlier issued a warning and provided a patch that some firms had failed to install over the Iranian new year holiday.

A blog published on Thursday by Nick Biasini, a threat researcher at Cisco’s Talos Security Intelligence and Research Group, said: “Several incidents in multiple countries, including some specifically targeting critical infrastructure, have involved the misuse of the Smart Install protocol…

“As a result, we are taking an active stance, and are urging customers, again, of the elevated risk and available remediation paths.”

On Saturday evening, Cisco said those postings were a tool to help clients identify weaknesses and repel a cyber attack.

Iran’s IT Minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi posted a picture of a computer screen on Twitter with the image of the U.S. flag and the hackers’ message. He said it was not yet clear who had carried out the attack.

Azari-Jahromi said the attack mainly affected Europe, India and the United States, state television reported.

“Some 55,000 devices were affected in the United States and 14,000 in China, and Iran’s share of affected devices was 2 percent,” Azari-Jahromi was quoted as saying.

In a tweet, Azari-Jahromi said the state computer emergency response body MAHER had shown “weaknesses in providing information to (affected) companies” after the attack which was detected late on Friday in Iran.

Hadi Sajadi, deputy head of the state-run Information Technology Organisation of Iran, said the attack was neutralized within hours and no data was lost.

(Reporting by Dubai newsroom, additional reporting by Dustin Volz in Washington; editing by Ros Russell and G Crosse)