Friday, January 15, 2016

The attack by Russia on Ukraine's electric grid was due to resolving issues between Ukraine and Crimea.

January 14, 2016
By Gordon Robinson and Michael Riley

It was an unseasonably warm afternoon (click here) in Ukraine on Dec. 23 when the power suddenly went out for thousands of people in the capital, Kiev, and western parts of the country. While technicians struggled for several hours to turn the lights back on, frustrated customers got nothing but busy signals at their utilities’ call centers.
Almost immediately, Ukrainian security officials made claims about the cause of the power failure that evoked futuristic concepts of cyberwar. Hackers had taken down almost a quarter of the country’s power grid, they said. Specifically, the officials blamed Russians for tampering with the utilities’ software, then jamming the power companies’ phone lines to keep customers from alerting anyone....

Russia has been practicing these tactics along with China. That is why computer technology does not provide the most secure energy.

January 14, 2016
by yalibrian

Ukraine is ready to sign (click here) a new contract to supply Crimea with electricity provided the region is recognized as part of Ukraine, President Petro Poroshenko told reporters at a news conference on Thursday.
Power supplies to the disputed Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, have been disrupted after electricity pylons were blown up by unknown saboteurs in November.
Poroshenko also said he expected inflation to be significantly slower in 2016, compared to the rate of 33.3 percent seen last year....

This is really unfortunate and a window of Russia's intentions in the region. According to Minsk II tensions between Crimea, Eastern region of Ukraine and Ukraine are to be resolved. Economic ties can be that capacity to bring about reductions of tensions. The people of Ukraine want to live in peace as was pointed out in their country's constitution. No country should stand in the way of peace, including Russia.

It isn't as though everyone but Russia is innocent of such sabotage.

January 13, 2016 
by Nilufer Tuptuk And Stephen Hailes

...Now reports released (click here) by security researchers from the SANS Industrial Control Systems team and the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team confirm their belief that a cyberattack was responsible for the power cut, making the incident one of the first significant, publicly reported cyberattacks on civil infrastructure.

This is a rare event, of which the most famous example is the Stuxnet malware used to destroy equipment in the Iranian nuclear programme. Many consider Stuxnet so sophisticated that national governments must have been involved. But as is frequently the case, attributing responsibility for Stuxnet has proved difficult, and it's likely that, despite circumstantial evidence, it will be the same in this case. While the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and the international press were quick to blame Russian state-backed hackers, Moscow has remained silent....
Now reports released by security researchers from the SANS Industrial Control Systems team and the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team confirm their belief that a cyberattack was responsible for the power cut, making the incident one of the first significant, publicly reported cyberattacks on civil infrastructure.
This is a rare event, of which the most famous example is the Stuxnet malware used to destroy equipment in the Iranian nuclear programme. Many consider Stuxnet so sophisticated that national governments must have been involved. But as is frequently the case, attributing responsibility for Stuxnet has proved difficult, and it's likely that, despite circumstantial evidence, it will be the same in this case. While the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and the international press were quick to blame Russian state-backed hackers, Moscow has remained silent.


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-01-cyberattack-ukraine-power-grid.html#jCp