Power Grid - Must Read

Though I am unable to vote "over there" and something of a democrat, Regan was always a favourite of mine too.  He struck me a a "Good guy" and brighter than most, despite the plethora of jokes to the contrary.  

Letter Re: Regarding Massive Solar Events/Power Generation

http://survivalblog.com/letter-re-regarding-massive-solar-eventspower-generation/

hmmm

a major medical center can go a whole 26 hours before its lights out

I'm impressed

the average person has NO idea of just how VERY fragile our entire system is

WillobyBrat- What we need today is not a diplomat but a Roosevelt (preferably Teddy) or a Churchill or even a JFK! Someone with the backbone to stand up and say "Enough"!

By the way, just FYI, What the US Marines say is URA which is an acronym for understood, recognized, acknowledged. In the US Army it was HUA, Heard Understood, Acknowledged, The inside joke with NCO's replying to officers is it means " Sir, your head is up your a__.

DOE warns ‘modern life’ threatened by terror, climate threats to electric grid

ht tp://www.washingtonexaminer.com/doe-warns-modern-life-threatened-by-terror-climate-threats-to-electric-grid/article/2563360

“In the new report, the Energy Department warns that modern life could be endangered if the grid went down. A congressional report has warned that a solar flare or terrorist attack could darken the grid for a year, during which most of those supplied by the grid would die.”

let me repeat that one part

“a solar flare or terrorist attack could darken the grid for a year”

onefluover wrote: ...ISIS is conducting reconnaissance of regional universities; the White Sands Missile Range; government facilities in Alamogordo, NM; Ft. Bliss; and the electrical power facilities near Anapra and Chaparral, NM http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/04/isis-camp-a-few-miles-from-texas-mexican-authorities-confirm/

Lights Off: How The World Could Change In 7 Days

http://www.myfamilysurvivalplan.com/lights-off-how-the-world-could-change-in-7-days/

Satori, EMP or a flare from the sun...this country is going to have a huge problem. I will get as much water as I can first then pray my son can get home from college and hunker down.

I prep for anything and everything!

It will be really bad for the first 2-3 months then people will start to die. I will try and organize my neighborhood when I can but none of them are prepped but I have a cop, two nurses, a mechanic, on this block and all of us are pretty good friends. We will need each other If TSHTF.

Are we ready yet for potentially disastrous impacts of space weather?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/are-we-ready-yet-for-potentially-disastrous-impacts-of-space-weather/2012/07/11/gJQAdbvJdW_blog.html

Scientists spot evidence for “superflares,” blowing away anything we’ve ever seen


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/05/05/scientists-spot-evidence-for-superflares-blowing-away-anything-weve-ever-seen/

From Drudge Report:
Pentagon to spend nearly $1b shielding War Games mountain bunker from nuclear EMP attack but denies it is moving NORAD back in
Pentagon will spend $700million renovating the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, the former headquarters of NORAD
High tech communications being installed that are impervious to electromagnetic pulses
The bunker is build under 2,000 feet of the Rocky Mountains and is able to withstand a hit by a 30 megaton nuclear blast
Decommissioned ten years ago because 'Russians were no longer a threat'

Go to Drudge to read the whole article.


OK so we need to figure that the U.S. Government sees a problem with EMP! Guys we are in trouble if this really happens!

the "Aurora test"

http://easyrider.easyrider.com/aurora_white_paper.htm

"What is the Aurora vulnerability?: Aurora is a vulnerablity to cyber attacks that could sabotage critical systems that provide electricity including the nationwide power grid."

Congress has been warned about this for over a decade

and still NOTHING

Congress warned 'catastrophic danger' looming

http://www.wnd.com/2015/05/congress-warned-catastrophic-danger-looming/?cat_orig=us

"A lack of will among politicians in Washington is the reason why there is no plan to secure America’s national grid system from an electromagnetic pulse that would threaten countless lives, according to testimony delivered to Congress Wednesday."


"WND has reported that a 303-page report by the Department of Homeland Security warns a massive EMP event could leave more than 130 million Americans without power for years, cutting off heat, communications, food deliveries and fuel."

First known hacker-caused power outage signals troubling escalation

ht tp://arstechnica.com/security/2016/01/first-known-hacker-caused-power-outage-signals-troubling-escalation/

""It's a milestone because we've definitely seen targeted destructive events against energy before—oil firms, for instance—but never the event which causes the blackout," John Hultquist, head of iSIGHT's cyber espionage intelligence practice, told Ars. "It's the major scenario we've all been concerned about for so long."

proof that it can be done

First known hacker-caused power outage signals troubling escalation
Highly destructive malware creates "destructive events" at 3 Ukrainian substations.

Highly destructive malware that infected at least three regional power authorities in Ukraine led to a power failure that left hundreds of thousands of homes without electricity last week, researchers said.

The outage left about half of the homes in the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine without electricity, Ukrainian news service TSN reported in an article posted a day after the December 23 failure. The report went on to say that the outage was the result of malware that disconnected electrical substations. On Monday, researchers from security firm iSIGHT Partners said they had obtained samples of the malicious code that infected at least three regional operators. They said the malware led to "destructive events" that in turn caused the blackout. If confirmed it would be the first known instance of someone using malware to generate a power outage.

"It's a milestone because we've definitely seen targeted destructive events against energy before—oil firms, for instance—but never the event which causes the blackout," John Hultquist, head of iSIGHT's cyber espionage intelligence practice, told Ars. "It's the major scenario we've all been concerned about for so long."


Refurbished BlackEnergy does Windows and Linux—even Cisco routers.
Researchers from antivirus provider ESET have confirmed that multiple Ukrainian power authorities were infected by "BlackEnergy," a package discovered in 2007 that was updated two years ago to include a host of new functions, including the ability to render infected computers unbootable. More recently, ESET found, the malware was updated again to add a component dubbed KillDisk, which destroys critical parts of a computer hard drive and also appears to have functions that sabotage industrial control systems. The latest BlackEnergy also includes a backdoored secure shell (SSH) utility that gives attackers permanent access to infected computers.

“Perfectly capable”

Until now, BlackEnergy has mainly been used to conduct espionage on targets in news organizations, power companies, and other industrial groups. While ESET stopped short of saying the BlackEnergy infections hitting the power companies were responsible for last week's outage, the company left little doubt that one or more of the BlackEnergy components had that capability. In a blog post published Monday, ESET researchers wrote:

    Our analysis of the destructive KillDisk malware detected in several electricity distribution companies in Ukraine indicates that it is theoretically capable of shutting down critical systems. However, there is also another possible explanation. The BlackEnergy backdoor, as well as a recently discovered SSH backdoor, themselves provide attackers with remote access to infected systems. After having successfully infiltrated a critical system with either of these trojans, an attacker would, again theoretically, be perfectly capable of shutting it down. In such case, the planted KillDisk destructive trojan would act as a means of making recovery more difficult.

Over the past year, the group behind BlackEnergy has slowly ramped up its destructive abilities. Late last year, according to an advisory from Ukraine's Computer Emergency Response Team, the KillDisk module of BlackEnergy infected media organizations in that country and led to the permanent loss of video and other content. The KillDisk that hit the Ukrainian power companies contained similar functions but was programmed to delete a much narrower set of data, ESET reported. KillDisk had also been updated to sabotage two computer processes, including a remote management platform associated with the ELTIMA Serial to Ethernet Connectors used in industrial control systems.

In 2014, the group behind BlackEnergy, which iSIGHT has dubbed the Sandworm gang, targeted the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Ukrainian and Polish government agencies, and a variety of sensitive European industries. iSIGHT researchers say the Sandworm gang has ties to Russia, although readers are cautioned on attributing hacking attacks to specific groups or governments.

According to ESET, the Ukrainian power authorities were infected using booby-trapped macro functions embedded in Microsoft Office documents. If true, it's distressing that industrial control systems used to supply power to millions of people could be infected using such a simple social-engineering ploy. It's also concerning that malware is now being used to create power failures that can have life-and-death consequences for large numbers of people.

Ukrainian authorities are investigating a suspected hacking attack on its power grid, the Reuters news service reported last week. ESET has additional technical details about the latests BlackEnergy package here.

While Saudi Arabia's largest gas producer was also infected by destructive malware in 2012, there's no confirmation it affected production. iSIGHT's report suggests a troubling escalation in malware-controlled conflict that has consequences for industrialized nations everywhere.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/01/first-known-hacker-caused-power-outage-signals-troubling-escalation/

Save the world!................................   Arm Hazelpad.

[QUOTE=FluMom]This was on 9 news written by Steve Reilly, USA Today:


Bracing for a big power grid attack: 'One is too many'

About once every four days, part of the nation's power grid — a system whose failure could leave millions in the dark — is struck by a cyber or physical attack, a USA TODAY analysis of federal energy records finds.

Although the repeated security breaches have never resulted in the type of cascading outage that swept across the Northeast in 2003, they have sharpened concerns about vulnerabilities in the electric system. A widespread outage lasting even a few days could disable devices ranging from ATMs to cellphones to traffic lights, and could threaten lives if heating, air conditioning and health care systems exhaust their backup power supplies.

comment: This is not new news. I was told by AEP and the powers that be 6 years ago we only had 2 years until a complete grid failure. A simple EMP burst over a particular spot from a low flying satellite could wipe out most the power ranging into 1/3 of Canada and Mexico.

Daily power stations - especially the computers that run them are attacked thousands of times a day and it is for certain - after an attack nearby me in Californa on the local grid, if they could have done this and we did not have the security in place, it would have happened.

The media and America is being subjected to a climate of pure fear which has been generated since 9/11 and especially bad as we near the elections.  We have a pair of really poor candidates and this provides are very good topic as the conventions draw near.

The terrorist threat is as much from our own covert and controlling groups. If the grid is taken down it very unlikely it will be done with explosives. Extremely good hackers - not bombers would be far more effective putting a worm or virus into the systems running grid.

If you will read my lights out chapter which I wrote 6 years ago and has been ignored it is true we do not have the infrastructure or police force to deal with a power outage in any major city for more than 48 hours.

These attacks on the grid happen daily at most major power stations in the U.S.

Medclinician

I personally met with the VP of the United States biggest power company AEP in Columbus, Ohio. We talked about this and how to prevent it. We still can if the U.S. will fund the synchro phaser power intiative and let us try. It is not a priority with the powers that be - and it is more likely to happen by the sheer volume of data going out than by any terrorist.