Hackers Cut Cities' Power

Oh for the good old days, which relied on people, before the Plant and Equipment computer control with access from outside the equipment area.

The alarming thing is that every major City is so vulnerable: water, power, sanitation, traffic control, telecommunications, Food preparation, pharmaceutical makers, you name it, and almost all controls are accessible externally.

Now I know we cannot go back to the days of the horse and cart, nor would I wish to do so, but if there is a Computer System anywhere, it is vulnerable.

The more we rely on the machines for our daily living, the more precarious are our lives.

Kind Regards....

Shortly after 9/11 the big fear/concern in the northeast (I was living in Boston during this time) was all the exposed water reservoirs.

Yes, contamination... here they were concerned with nuclear power plant security

I agree with you on this one.

I wonder if it wouldn't be practical for critical systems such as utilities, power companies, etc. to develop their own Internet or other electronic communications systems separate and apart from the general public. I may be wrong, but I don't believe I recall any large scale hacking into computer systems until they could be accessed from the outside.

Btw, what is wrong with the horse and buggy ? It worked.

Last year, I was working in a building deemed "mission control" by the local power company. There were the usual offices, breakrooms etc., the heart of the place was a room that looked like a mini representation of a NASA control room - quite impressive. Looking through the door, it had a big piece of glass to look in and out, all I could think of was this exact thing - How hard would it be for a person, or group, that had ill intentions to hack into this and totally screw the place up? There were representations of the local, state and national power grids on the wall of this room with readouts of what was here and what was there and where everything that was generated by this individual company was going to (on the grid). This internet thing is very entertaining and enlightening but is also a lil' scary and intimidating when one stops to think of the power that can be corrupted online by a person/group.

The problem would come from the need to have all of these entities tied together. Should they have their own intranet (?) so that way they are not bothered by this problem, just be tied in with eachother and the outside world be damned?

I agree with Sparky about the old days when this would not have happened because we were not so FREAKING relient on computers. A necessary evil(?) ....

Water, yes. That would definitely be a thing to worry about. Our water here in So Cal is definitely limited and we are dependent on many different water supplies.

"He also glossed over what element of the systems had been exploited."

Ya think? Thank whatever goodness prevails for a shred of sensibility in all of this. Of COURSE the systems are vulnerable. And the sad part is, the insider info could be coming from a disgruntled employee, possibly ex-, who gets taken in by someone he doesn't even know has terroristic motives. For that matter, they wouldn't even HAVE to be ungruntled, only vulnerable to showing off their intimate knowledge. "Loose lips sink ships" was never a truer statement!

Amen!!! Couldn't have said it any better than that ...

Lots of vulnerabilty - good 4 min FLASH video of a simulated attack using a Storm II variant on a municipal system and hospital at http://dev.act-online.net/tfi