Page 105 - Cyber Warnings

The Electric Grid as Our Manager

Lessons from a Recent Issue
by Charles Parker, II

Recently a substantial wind storm blew through the lower peninsula of Michigan. There were
wind bursts of, at times, of over 60 miles per hour with sustained winds of 40 mph.

This removed the opportunity for people to use electricity for anywhere of 36 hours to sever
days.

The immediate effect for certain parties located in the rather broad brush stroke of the storm
happened to be rather drastic.

If parties had generators in place, the effect was significant but not drastic, such as not
operating all the equipment or every other of their set of lights. Without a generator, the
business imply shuts down for a few days, to the owner and management’s detriment.

The effect of this in the latter case tends to very greatly, dependent on the industry. With a
restaurant, there is food to take into consideration. In the cases of a manufacturer, revenue and
timing schedules would be definitely affected.

There may be a lag time for a plant to begin manufacturing when shut down for an in
determinant amount of time.

This unfortunate set of events sheds a rather bright light on two aspects within the utility
industry. The utilities tend to be rather insecure and presents vulnerabilities.

As an example, in 2016 a waste water treatment plant in Lansing, MI had the pleasure and
opportunity of being targeted and a victim of ransomware.

The utility eventually paid the fee for the decrypt key.

Instead of the power outage being caused by a rather substantial storm, this could have easily
been the result of an attack on the enterprise, ICS, and/or SCADA.

The latest DDoS attacks show the level of devastation that could occur without a mass amount
of effort.

These systems, especially at the utilities, need to be secured appropriately to avoid these
issues. In this case of the potential attack, the electricity could be out for several days or longer,
not simply 36 hours.

Any equipment damaged during one of these attacks would incur substantial delays.

105 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – April 2017 Edition
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