First-Ever Hacker Take-Down of Power Grid Caused Massive Ukraine Power Outage

Last month, Ukraine suffered a massive power outage leaving several hundreds of thousands of homes and business in the Ivano-Frankivsk region without power, transportation systems, communications, and water utilities. The massive outage has been claimed to be the very first mass-scale hacker-caused power outage.

At the time of the power outage, experts were unaware of the exact cause. After security firm iSIGHT Partners had collected samples of malicious code that infected three regional power grid operators, it was confirmed that the outage was a result of a cyberattack.

Power grids around the world have long been soft targets for cybercrooks. The advancement of technology and automation at power facilities around the world have only made such entities more accessible and vulnerable in some aspects to cyberattacks.

Malicious hackers and cybercrooks are always on the hunt for their next kill, and it just so happened that three power substations on the Ukrainian national grid where vulnerable enough to allow hackers to load malicious code to execute a temporary shutdown of power.

Security experts and officials have always been concerned that cybercrooks and hackers would exploit vulnerabilities within power grids and power plant facilities. As it turns out, the recent take down of the three power grids in Ukraine marks a historical event, one that finally succumbed to an attack on a major power facility.

Lawmakers and security experts have continually expressed their concern for security exploits and the potential for cyberattacks that could cripple public systems and ones that thousands to millions of citizens rely on for day-to-day life. Additionally, the fear of terrorist groups, such as ISIS, has grown to unprecedented levels as the recent temporary power outage in the Ukraine gets everyone's attention.

What's even more startling when it comes to news outside of the Ukraine losing power due to a cyberattack, is the fact that cybercrooks and hackers attack power grids in the US on a daily basis. Fortunately, most of the attacks that take place each day are not reportable because they do not make much of an impact, further proving that the security infrastructure is well intact and robust enough to capture and thwart attacks.

The endeavor of finding out who was behind the recent attack on Ukraine's power grid is an ongoing task. Ukraine already put the blame on Russia for the attack while a special commission is established to further investigate the matters. Tensions between Russia and Ukraine have already spiked and have stirred the pot even more with Russian military intervention in certain areas. As far as the malware used, researchers from ESET security believe it was a threat called BlackEnergy, a Trojan horse that has been used by Russia before against government targets.