‘Preparing the battlefield’: Hackers implant digital grenades in industrial networks

June 27, 2018 01:15 PM

Updated June 27, 2018 03:09 PM
Hanover, Maryland

The United States pioneered the use of cyberweapons when it shattered Iran’s nuclear centrifuges in 2010 but such devastating cyber tools have spread and are now boomeranging to make industrial digital sabotage a growing concern to the United States.

The weapons can wreak destruction and kill people. Experts say cyber weapons can turn off power grids, derail trains, cause offshore oil rigs to list, turn petrochemical plants into bombs and shut down factories.

Twice in the past eight months, federal authorities have issued public warnings that foreign hackers are seeking to penetrate the U.S. electric grid and other parts of national critical infrastructure. The intent: Insert digital grenades that are dormant until the hacker's sponsor pulls the pin.

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“My intel team is tracking eight different teams that are targeting infrastructure around the world,” said Lee, 30, who spent five years working at the National Security Agency and the Pentagon’s Cyber Command before forming his company three years ago.

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U.S. and Israeli cyberwarriors blazed the trail on industrial cyber sabotage when they used the Stuxnet digital worm to cause centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility to spin out of control and shatter, inflicting a major setback on Iran's efforts to enrich uranium to power nuclear weapons and reactors.

Read more here: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-secu...


Edited by 51flood 7/1/2018 16:46