The First Successful Cyber Attack on an Electrical Grid

Experts have long warned about the exposure of industrial control systems to cyber attack. These systems, like those used in our electrical grid, usually are not regularly updated.

Their failure would cause significant social disruption. They are the soft underbelly of our modern world. For example, Stuxnet exploited a Siemens industrial controller not designed to withstand cyber attack. In another case, original, 1960’s 8 inch, floppy disks control parts of the launch systems for U.S. nuclear missiles.[1] Indeed, most homes still have traditional circuit breakers.

The first known instance of malware causing a disruption in major electrical service took place on December 23, 2015 in Ukraine. At least three regional substations were disconnected from the grid. While not in the U.S., the Ukrainian methods and apparatuses for delivering electricity to the end-user are not significantly different. In all, around 700,000 homes lost power as a result of this attack.

The cyber attack happened when many Ukrainian power stations became infected by the malware package “BlackEnergy.” The package’s original purpose was to spy on various business groups, such as media organizations, power companies, and telecoms. However, the malware used in this attack contained several important upgrades to its functionality—most notably: making the infected machine unbootable, wiping all data on the infected machine, and backdooring a secure shell (SSH) utility, which gave the attackers permanent access to the infected machines. Researchers suspect that the attackers used the SSH to gain access to the systems and shut them down. Meanwhile, the program wiped all the data on the systems, making their recovery much more lengthy and difficult. Finally, the attackers waged denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) on the target’s internet and phones systems to prevent power company personnel from learning about the outages.

The group behind BlackEnergy is known as the “Sandworm Gang.”

In the past, this group has spied on NATO, Eastern European agencies, and European commercial and industrial groups. Research suggests that the group operates from Russia, although confirmation has been slippery, and even if they did operate from Russia, it is not clear who is directing them. Whoever this group is though, they possess enough sophistication to run a three pronged attack: shutting down electric service, wiping data on the system computers, and coordinating a DDoS attack on internet and phone systems. No one of these three prongs is necessarily a difficult attack. However, the coordination of all three indicates that, without hyper-sophisticated malware, attackers can use a variety of low-sophistication attacks in tandem to produce a high-level result.

The infection most likely, although not confirmed, occurred through Microsoft Word macros. These sorts of attacks are considered “social engineering” attacks, which rely on duping an end-user into installing malware or taking an action they otherwise would not and should not take. This particular kind is simple and insidious. For example, the end-user receives an email from his boss saying to review the attached document ASAP. The email looks legitimate, and not wanting to disappoint the boss, the user opens the attachment. As the Word document opens, it runs a macro that installs the malicious software, unbeknownst to the end-user.

Despite experts’ warnings, attacks on these sorts of systems have been rare and usually done only for specific discrete reasons. However, with the now real threat that these attacks could become more widespread and more frequent, we will have to acknowledge that any device with a computer connected to a system, must be secured and monitored for cyber-attack.

[1] Oddly enough, this is currently a pretty secure way to operate these missiles as the technology is so old that it is impervious to the advancements in cyber attack software. However, once someone does develop an exploit, the whole system will need to change.

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Additional information and resources:
Cyber Security And Data Protection Group

Intellectual Property And Technology