Analysis & Opinions - Russia Matters

Hacking Power Grids: New Tactic of War or Wave of the Future?

| Nov. 03, 2017

Preview

According to U.S. cybersecurity company Symantec, a hacking campaign dubbed Dragonfly 2.0 successfully infiltrated U.S. power plants over the past two years. The latest spate of incidents has been particularly alarming because the hackers appear to have accessed control systems at a handful of U.S. facilities. Symantec’s report speculates about the hack’s “potential for sabotage” and “disruptive purposes,” but doesn’t identify the hackers’ origins, saying only that they are “clearly an accomplished attack group.” Other researchers believe the culprits are linked to the Russian government, dovetailing with Ukraine’s allegations that Moscow was behind hacks against its power grids in 2015 and again in 2016.

Want to Read More?

The full text of this publication is available via the original publication source.
Read Full Article
For more information on this publication: Belfer Communications Office
For Academic Citation: Kostyuk, Nadiya.“Hacking Power Grids: New Tactic of War or Wave of the Future?.” Russia Matters, November 3, 2017.

The Author

Recommended
In the Spotlight
RSS
Brittany Janis and Melissa Shapiro write about the "Exploring Arctic Sustainability" program which brought together nearly 20 Indigenous youth from Alaska, Canada, Mongolia, Norway, and Sweden for a week of climate leadership training and dialogue.
Calder Walton writes in this Times piece that China is conducting an espionage onslaught against Britain unlike that undertaken by Western governments themselves. "It is broad, deep, accelerating, and multi-domain," he says.
Energy economist Severin Borenstein in this conversation with Robert Stavins discussed the many significant challenges facing the nation’s electricity power sector in the latest episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice."
Most Viewed

Tags