Russian Hackers Sabotaging Critical U.S Infrastructure

Among every state-sponsored hacking group that has attacked the U.S power grid, and went beyond to compromise American Electric Utilities, only Sandworm, a Russian Espionage group, has been bold enough to activate real blackouts, compelling lights shutdown in Ukraine in 2015 and 2016. A firm that emphasizes grid security has issued a warning that a criminal group that has links to Sandworm’s highly sophisticated hackers has been successfully attacking US energy systems and it’s been years.

Wired reports, “Dragos ties Kamacite to electric grid intrusions not just in the US, but also to European targets well beyond the well-publicized attacks in Ukraine. That includes a hacking campaign against Germany’s electric sector in 2017.” Recently, Dragos, an industrial cybersecurity firm issued its yearly report on the current state of industrial controls systems security. The report has identified four new foreign criminal groups which target these critical infrastructure systems. Three of these four groups have attacked US industrial control systems.