Editor’s Note: In May 2011, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Pentagon: Cyber Attacks Can Count as Acts of War.” The article began, “The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.”
Two U.S. power plants were struck my malware attacks in 2012 according to the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team.
The malware apparently entered both plants through USB drives inserted into individual computers in the plant networks.
In the case of one infection, the software resulted in the plant being forced to remain closed for three additional weeks beyond the scheduled shutdown for maintenance. The software on the USB drives was reportedly unknown to the technician that had used the drives for installing software updates.
The ICS-CERT said that similar attacks could lead to extended system downtimes and issued regulations regarding the use of removable media.
Power plants have been the target of increasingly destructive cyber attacks in recent years. Beyond the stealing of confidential data, the software could allow a hacker to penetrate and destroy the operating systems of plants, effectively cutting power to large areas for an unknown amount of time.
I hope the sleeping Church wakes up and gets prepared. Things seem to be happening at an ever increasing rate. Power and water with damages to property on a large scale.
The Church needs our prayers. You know the Canada and USA are linked in some areas in the hydro sector. As our longer termed outage here was due to repairs needed on the US side. So it could get messy if people get sloppy and non attentive in the various work places. The Govt here or there will not be able to help much and in fact the red tape and other factors would increase the difficulties as was shown in New Jersey and New York.