Russians Are Said to Be Suspects in Nuclear Site Hackings

[CousinIT]

Hackers working for a foreign government recently breached at least a dozen U.S. power plants, including the Wolf Creek nuclear facility in Kansas, according to current and former U.S. officials, sparking concerns the attackers were searching for vulnerabilities in the electrical grid.

The rivals could be positioning themselves to eventually disrupt the nation’s power supply, warned the officials, who noted that a general alert was distributed to utilities a week ago. Adding to those concerns, hackers recently infiltrated an unidentified company that makes control systems for equipment used in the power industry, an attack that officials believe may be related.

The chief suspect is Russia, according to three people familiar with the continuing effort to eject the hackers from the computer networks. One of those networks belongs to an aging nuclear generating facility known as Wolf Creek -- owned by Westar Energy Inc., Great Plains Energy Inc. and Kansas Electric Power Cooperative Inc. -- on a lake shore near Burlington, Kansas.

The possibility of a Russia connection is particularly worrisome, former and current officials say, because Russian hackers have previously taken down parts of the electrical grid in Ukraine and appear to be testing increasingly advanced tools to disrupt power supplies.

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2017-07-07/russians-are-said-to-be-suspects-in-hacks-involving-nuclear-site

[Hieronymus]

1. Will Trump ignore this, too?

[struggle4progress]

3. Oh, give the guy a break! Just because the Administration can't organize a trip to Germany,

suddenly everybody's wondering if his hand-picked staff can do anything at all

That is very very bad. Very bad. Not good. But we have a plan. Actually, we don't know that Russia was behind this. But we have a fantastic plan. The best. We are asking to see Hillary's plan. Crooked Hillary. Lock her up. And it's not going to cost you anything. Mexico will pay for it. She was bleeding from the whatever, you know. Really. She was bleeding. But we are going to ask China to do more. Pence for President 2017.

[cilla4progress]

2. Putin saying

"Look how I can fuck with you."

[TrishaJ]

4. Fellow citizens who are giving Russia a "pass" on

election hacking are not getting the threat here. This is cyber "warfare" and being able to hack into power systems and nuclear plants is ominous indeed. Who needs to drop bombs when the power grid can be brought down or a nuclear meltdown at any number of domestic sites can bring us to our knees? Was it SO vital to keep Hillary Clinton out of the Presidency and at what cost??