Hacking the power grid is one of the holy grails of hacker prowess. The first real power outage caused by hackers occurred near Kiev in 2015. Now researchers say that a malicious group has gained unprecedented operational access to American power company systems, and experts worry that the ability to cause a blackout at will could be in the hands of unknown actors. Advertisement On Wednesday, the researchers at Symantec published a report that outlines the broad details of their investigation into the actions of a group they’re calling “Dragonfly 2.0.” Symantec claims to have evidence that in over 20 cases the hackers gained access to the targeted power company networks. In some cases in the US, they managed to secure access to the interfaces that are used to control the power grid’s equipment. As security researcher John Hultquist points out, the group “has not demonstrated a capability to manipulate the systems they are after,” but it does appear that this is a reconnaissance mission designed to prepare for an attack. Symantec’s research is connecting this attack with the Dragonfly group that it reported on in 2014 and is believed to have been operating since at least 2011. As in… Read full this story
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