CIA Says Hackers Pulled Plug On Power Grid - Why Is That Even News?

According to Computerworld, “criminals have been able to hack into computer systems via the Internet and cut power to several cities”. The source of this revelation was CIA analyst Tom Donahue speaking at a conference last Wednesday.

The vulnerabilities of the power grid should come as no surprise to any thinking person, after all, it only takes a downed tree to knock out power to thousands. Furthermore, the North American power grid is a complex machine, as an article entitled “What’s wrong with the electric grid?” suggests the world’s biggest machine, riddled with the usual political wrangling, economics-above-security and resultant mass vulnerabilities. Who needs internet hackers to disrupt service, when any number of “natural” causes can do the trick?

This is not to say that hackers using the internet (why are power grids even connected to something as vulnerable as the internet anyway?) should not be considered a real threat. However, this eternal obsession in security with complex bogey-threats (such as terrorists with shoe and liquid bombs sneaking past airport security) suggest a misplaced focus in the field. After all, why would a terrorist who really wants to achieve what the term suggests risk having his or her plot being foiled by low-level security if a plane can be brought down with simpler means outside the airport or power to millions can be disrupted by trees?

Perhaps it’s time to start looking at the system as a whole as opposed to being blinded by the rare sensationalist threat.

This entry was posted on January 25 2008 at 15:42 and is filed under Disaster Management, North America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.