Ukraine Power Grid Hack Seen As Warning For U.S.

The takedown of parts of the Ukrainian power grid in December was highly sophisticated and highly effective. A New York Times article, tapping a variety of sources including a recent alert from the Department of Homeland Security, considers its implications for the U.S. system. The modus operandi of the Ukraine attack was to take over and disable industrial controls, not unlike the way the Stuxnet virus was deployed to cripple Iran’s nuclear centrifuge capacity. It could have been worse for Ukraine had an important component of the system not been old-fashioned hand-operated circuit breakers, according to Ted Koppel, who has written a book on U.S. grid vulnerability. There is no such buffer in the more state-of-the-art U.S. grid, and therefore it’s arguably more vulnerable.