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2003-08-15 Terror Networks

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Posted by Dar 2003-08-15 1:40:53 PM|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Argh--Hat tip: InstaPundit. I'm shameless!

Posted by Dar 2003-8-15 1:44:03 PM|| [http://users.stargate.net/~dsteckel/] 2003-8-15 1:44:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 Some SCADA engineers worry about it, also.
Random targets have a fairly high probability of being hardened. The problem is that there are enough targets that aren't hardened to take down the grid.

Posted by Dishman 2003-8-15 4:42:47 PM|| 2003-8-15 4:42:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Mr. Boden is a fool. He could have had a job with my employer. I install and maintain power plant distributed control systems in the US. Our system is the #1 system in the world. We are installing them like crazy in plants in China (and hopefully Iraq soon.) We are desperate for engineers. We have never been able to fill more than 3/4 of our positions even at the height of the recession.

All systems are vulnerable to inside jobs no matter the security. Soon, there will be DCS experienced insiders from most nations.

Nuke plants in the US do not use digital controls for safety system control, they do use them here and there for data acquisition and non-safety related control. It is a long story why not. We do zero business with nukes. Thank Allah.

Nuke plants are the bedrock also of a restart of an entire grid outage because they all have mojo big diesels generators with beaucoup diesel fuel on hand. Most coal and gas turbine sites have no provision for cold start.

Most plants keep their distributed control systems on isolated networks which means inside jobs only.

Hacking an unisolated system is always possible. Understanding what to do at the point is another story. Simply trashing of the system hard drives is not the end of the world. Real lasting damage takes understanding of myriad plant processes and the grid itself. (My definition of real damage is: the entire grid comes down and stays down for a long period.) The current grid outage doesn't amount to real damage in my book.

Unless UBL has boiler tuners or engineers specifically experienced at "reading" the control process on his payroll with lots of time and extreme hacking skills on multiple operating systems, a significant cyber-jihadi grid attack is not a significant threat....yet. Now the Chinese government on the other hand has plenty of tuners and hackers...

Anyway, in the end pooh on the lawn or a power plant attack is not the name of the game, a grid attack is.

Posted by hammerhead 2003-8-15 4:49:07 PM|| 2003-8-15 4:49:07 PM|| Front Page Top

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