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2023 Author: Donald Evans | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 05:03
The world's first electrical blackout caused by the cyber agehas occurred in Ukraine Hackers, or crackers in this case, have managed to leave hundreds of thousands of people without electricity for even several days.
The authorities have concluded that malware disconnected several electrical substations from the national grid. Specifically, the security firm ESET has called it “BlackEnergy”, a malware that has been circulating on the Internet for several years.
“BlackEnergy” is able to remove vital parts of the system so that we cannot easily recover it and also allowsthe attacker accesses the infected system remotely.
Interestingly, in the case of the blackout in Ukraine, the malware was included in an Office file, so an employee probably got it downloaded thinking there could be no malware behind it.
In any case, for the moment, the origin of this attack is unknown, which may be intentional or not.
The first time ever
The power blackout in part of Ukraine caused by cybercriminals is the first in history and it was really simple. “BlackEnergy” is a malware from 2007, which seems to have slipped through with great ease.
In addition, it also highlights that it is not only going after the electric companies, but has also been directed against the media and all kinds of industries.
It remains to be seen if this notice highlights the the security problem suffered by some facilities worldwide. The risk of a power outage is significant and what we see in movies one day may be real.
