Iowa utilities joining drill simulating knockout blow to nation’s power grid

While some measures are being taken, it might be too little, too late to be fully prepared for when the national power grid is lost. A US government commission report states that up to two-thirds of the population will die from starvation, disease and societal chaos within just a year. Another report states that it could be even worse: 9 out of 10 Americans would perish. Losing the power grid, whether it be from a terrorist attack or an overdue solar storm, would no doubt wreak havoc. Phones wouldn’t work. ATMs wouldn’t work. Hospitals couldn’t function. Airplanes would be grounded. Wall Street would come to a halt, as well as government services.

As worries increase about the vulnerability of the nation’s power grid, Iowa’s largest electric utilities will participate next week in a closely watched exercise simulating a knockout blow to United States’ electrical supply by cyber-sabotage and physical attacks.

Officials with MidAmerican Energy and Alliant Energy confirmed to the Des Moines Register they will be involved in GridEx II on Nov. 12 and 13. The event is sponsored by the North American Electric Reliability Corp., a non-profit entity whose mission is to ensure the reliability of the bulk-power system in North America.

DoD: U.S. War Machine Vulnerable to EMP Event

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Defense will be hard-pressed to respond in any meaningful way to a catastrophic failure of the civilian electric grid infrastructure due to an electromagnetic pulse event, whether natural or man-made, according to a little publicized study.

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“Preparing for months without a commercial source of clean water (city water pressure is often dependent on electric pumping to storage towers) and stoppage of sewage treatment facilities will require net methods of survival particularly in populated areas,” according to the little known May 2011 military study put out by the U.S. Army War College.

Exclusive: Cyberattack leaves natural gas pipelines vulnerable to sabotage

For further information on SCADAs, please see the following Global Geopolitics entries that were ahead of the curve:

• Security backdoor found in China-made US military chip
• UPDATE 3: U.S. probes cyber attack on water system

“Red Dragon Rising: Communist China’s Military Threat to America” from 1999 is a highly recommended read. The United States is in more vulnerable than most people know, and longer than most people would have thought.

Cyberspies linked to China’s military targeted nearly two dozen US natural gas pipeline operators over a recent six-month period, stealing information that could be used to sabotage US gas pipelines, according to a restricted US government report and a source familiar with the government investigation.

From December 2011 through June 2012, cyberspies targeted 23 gas pipeline companies with e-mails crafted to deceive key personnel into clicking on malicious links or file attachments that let the attackers slip into company networks, says the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report.

The report does not mention China, but the digital signatures of the attacks have been identified by independent cybersecurity researchers as belonging to a particular espionage group recently linked to China’s military.

The confluence of these factors –  along with the sensitive operational and technical details that were stolen – make the cyberbreaches perhaps among the most serious so far, some experts say. The stolen information could give an adversary all the insider knowledge necessary to blow up not just a few compressor stations but perhaps many of them simultaneously, effectively holding the nation’s gas infrastructure hostage. Nearly 30 percent of the nation’s power grid now relies on natural gas generation.

“This theft of key information is about hearing the footsteps get closer and closer,” says William Rush, a retired scientist formerly with the Gas Technology Institute who chaired the effort to create a cybersecurity standard applicable to the gas pipeline industry.

“Anyone can blow up a gas pipeline with dynamite. But with this stolen information, if I wanted to blow up not one, but 1,000 compressor stations, I could,” he adds. “I could put the attack vectors in place, let them sit there for years, and set them all off at the same time. I don’t have to worry about getting people physically in place to do the job, I just pull the trigger with one mouse click.”

Chinese Army Unit Is Seen as Tied to Hacking Against U.S.

Headquarters building of PLA Unit 61398

On the outskirts of Shanghai, in a run-down neighborhood dominated by a 12-story white office tower, sits a People’s Liberation Army base for China’s growing corps of cyberwarriors.

The building off Datong Road, surrounded by restaurants, massage parlors and a wine importer, is the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398. A growing body of digital forensic evidence — confirmed by American intelligence officials who say they have tapped into the activity of the army unit for years — leaves little doubt that an overwhelming percentage of the attacks on American corporations, organizations and government agencies originate in and around the white tower.

An unusually detailed 60-page study, to be released Tuesday by Mandiant, an American computer security firm, tracks for the first time individual members of the most sophisticated of the Chinese hacking groups — known to many of its victims in the United States as “Comment Crew” or “Shanghai Group” — to the doorstep of the military unit’s headquarters. The firm was not able to place the hackers inside the 12-story building, but makes a case there is no other plausible explanation for why so many attacks come out of one comparatively small area.

Fixing Cyber Roads and Bridges

The commander of the U.S. Cyber Command said on Wednesday that critical infrastructure like power grids and financial networks are weak and need to be strengthened against cyber attacks.

“From my perspective, the threats are real and growing,” said Army Gen. Keith Alexander, who heads the Cyber Command as well as the electronic intelligence-gathering National Security Agency.

Hackers hit U.S. Department of Energy

The U.S. Department of Energy has confirmed that its computer systems were hacked into last month. According to The New York Times, the federal agency sent around an internal e-mail on Friday telling its employees about the cyberattack.

“The Department of Energy has just confirmed a recent cyber incident that occurred in mid-January which targeted the Headquarters’ network and resulted in the unauthorized disclosure of employee and contractor Personally Identifiable Information,” the e-mail said.

Advanced American Technology Set to Transfer to China

Should this go through, it could prove to be the largest transfer of  dual use technology to China since the Clintons had sold countless amounts of super computers to the Communist country during their rule. Some time later, these very same computers were used to test their nuclear weapons and later gave them their stockpile they can now erase the US west coast with today.

Ten years worth of advanced American technology could pass from the United States to China if the sale of A123 is allowed to go through, Fox News reported.

A123 filed for bankruptcy in October 2012 after receiving nearly $250 million from American taxpayers. Wanxiang outbid three other companies in an auction for A123 in December.