Russian Hackers Said To "Penetrate US Electricity Grid" Using Outdated Ukrainian Malware
By Tyler Durden
Two days after the DHS and FBI released a report revealing what the US agencies alleged was the government-controlled Russian operation behind the “hacking of the US election” which they dubbed “Grizzly Steppe”, and which had a peculiar disclaimer according to which nothing contained in the report should be taken at face value or was even credible after the DHS said it “does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within”…
… overnight the crusade against “Russian hackers” continued following news that Russian hackers had managed to penetrate the Vermont electric grid, after a state utility, Burlington Electric, announced that it had found a notebook computer containing the same malware code that the FBI and DHS had touted as linked to the Russian hackers.
According to WaPo, “Burlington Electric said in a statement that the company detected a malware code used in the Grizzly Steppe operation in a laptop that was not connected to the organization’s grid systems. The firm said it took immediate action to isolate the laptop and alert federal authorities.” On Friday night, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) called on federal officials “to conduct a full and complete investigation of this incident and undertake remedies to ensure that this never happens again.”
As a reminder, this Thursday when Obama unveiled sanctions against Russia and announced the expulsion of Russian state workers in the worst diplomatic clash between the two nations since the cold war, concurrently the FBI and DHS released a joint report on the “Grizzly Steppe” a hacking operation which was supposedly linked to the Russian government, and alleged that it had targeted “US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.” In reality what they described in the report, was the simplest of spoofing operations, in which the “hackers involved in the Russian operation used fraudulent emails that tricked their recipients into revealing passwords.” In other words, if simple email spoofing – i.e., relying on the stupidity of its “American targets- was the best the Russian government could do to “hack the US elections”, then the US had little reason to be concerned.
Which is why the US felt the need to add to the sense of urgency overnight when it accused the same “government-organized group of hackers” as having penetrated the Vermont electric grid.
Along with the report, the US security agencies released a sample of the malware code allegedly used in the Grizzly Steppe operation to compromise US computer networks. The code was also shared with executives from 16 industries around the nation, including the financial, utility, and transportation sectors. It is this code which Burlington Electric, a Vermont-based utility, allegedly found.
The company released a statement on Friday night saying that the malware code had been detected during a scan of a single company laptop. However, soon after publication of the Post’s story, it was revealed that the malware had only infected a utility company laptop that had no access whatsoever to the electrical grid. …read more
Source: Russian Hackers Said To "Penetrate US Electricity Grid" Using Outdated Ukrainian Malware
