An investigation into a power outage that left customers in Ukraine without electricity for an hour last month has concluded that the cause was indeed a cyberattack, sources tell Motherboard. This would be the second such known hack of a Ukrainian power facility following a massive December 2015 power outage affecting about 230,000 people, which was later blamed on the Russian government.
The more recent attack occurred at a transmission facility, as opposed to the 2015 attack that affected a distribution facility, and was not as far-reaching (although it could have been much worse—as disruptions to a transmission facility could impact a wider area than distribution facilities). But taken together, the implications of both attacks and a series of other breaches around Ukraine suggest that someone, or various individuals, may be using the country as a testbed for refining attacks on critical infrastructure that could be used across the world. [...]
UkrEnergo, the national power company that oversees the Pivnichna substation and others, told customers after this last outage that it was unclear if it was the result of hackers or equipment failure, but the researchers say there is now no question it was the result of an intrusion. [...]
Krotofil says the latest attack began as part of a massive phishing campaign that occurred last July and targeted many government organizations. Wherever they were successful in getting in, the attackers sat on systems silently for months conducting reconnaissance before making their presence known in a series of events that occurred in December.
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