jeffy124's Journal: Power Grid Has No Security Standard

You knew this one was coming: Is the blackout an event of cyber-terror or other criminal hacking activity? This morning while driving into work Richard Clarke (formerly a US Gov't terror expert) was speaking on ABC News. He said that while US officials are saying terrorists have not struck, he stresses it should not be ruled out. Of interest is how vulnerable the grid might be. He stated that tests by Sandia, Livermore, and other national labs resulted in a better than 90% rate of breaking into systems on the power grid. These Red Team tests started in the 1990s. Not said was what they were capable of doing once on the inside, if these attacks were performed from the general Internet or a closed network, but he did say that no standard for security has been established (let alone implemented), with various actors (Dept of Energy, power companies, etc) still bickering over details. No link provided as one could not be located.

CyberWar! Frontline Documenatry link

[cyranoVR]

Relevant chapter [pbs.org] from Frontline's "Cyberwar!" Documenatry [pbs.org].

Re:CyberWar! Frontline Documenatry link

[heliocentric]

Thank you, t'was just about to linky to that as well.

I <3 Frontline et PBS

Re:CyberWar! Frontline Documenatry link

[baldass_newbie]

That was freaking chilling.

Re:CyberWar! Frontline Documenatry link

[cyranoVR]

Well, back when the show first aired in April, Sielwolf called CyberWar a bunch of "bullshit FUD handwaving." [slashdot.org] I am kinda interested in seeing what he things now...

Granted, the power outage we experienced by itself was more a "weapon of mass annoyance." However, it definitely was for "an operationally significant period of time [pbs.org]." There was a window where we were MUCH, MUCH more vunerable than if we had all our communications available.

Choice quote:
So if you and a group of friends decided to do it, whi

Re:CyberWar! Frontline Documenatry link

[baldass_newbie]

The shoulder launch missile thing had a target date of August 30th.
After watching that and doing some research online, I'm getting more than a little suspicious.
Having said that, the grid needs updating. Pronto.
BTW, forget suicide bombings, think biological attack. Everyone is in the street already. Everyone. You can't even get into a hotel room.

Re:CyberWar! Frontline Documenatry link

[cyranoVR]

No: forget biological attack, think suicide bombing.

Biological attacks are much more diffcult to implement and not as effective.

Meanwhile, simple bombs spread massive carnage and panic. Re: Israel.

Why bother with a time-consuming, difficult and unproven "superbug" when a case of fertilizer will do the trick?

Strange

[Safety Cap]

According to the various and sundry papers, they are not sure why the blackout happened, but Bush is sure that it is not the work of terrorists!

How would he know--maybe some of that super-secret information only the govt is privvy to, hmmm?