The energy infrastructure of a country is one of the most important and vital pieces of maintaining a nation. As time and technology have moved forward, so has our energy infrastructure. Much of it relies on technology to run and the risk of a potential hacking grows stronger every day. Now the United States government is issuing a warning to the public about potential attacks on our energy infrastructure.
The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI say that nuclear, energy, aviation, water and critical manufacturing have all been targeted as early as last May. The report also indicates, “other government entities” have been in the crosshairs of cyber attacks and hacks. The DHS and FBI say that attackers have been successful in compromising some targets but gave no specifics of those incidents.
U.S. authorities have been monitoring the activity for months, which they initially detailed in a confidential June report first reported by Reuters. That document, which was privately distributed to firms at risk of attacks, described a narrower set of activity focusing on the nuclear, energy and critical manufacturing sectors.
The hacking described in the government report is unlikely to result in dramatic attacks in the near term, Lee said, but he added that it is still troubling: “We don’t want our adversaries learning enough to be able to do things that are disruptive later.”
So it’s important to note that the danger isn’t imminent but it is something we should be aware of. We can only expect these types of attacks to continue and increase in scope. The infrastructure of a country is a juicy target and we’re hopeful that security experts are doing all they can to thwart any future attempts.
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[button link=”https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-energy/u-s-warns-public-about-attacks-on-energy-industrial-firms-idUSKBN1CQ0IN” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Reuters[/button]
