That reads like a scare story for MPs so they approve more money to some dodgy outfit that will save us all from the ever growing axis of evil...again.
This is greatly downplaying the hacking that has been made public, hasn’t been made public, and is continuously ongoing. Water treatment plants just publicly got hit in Canada and USA.
The simple truth right now is that China, Iran, and North Korea, are actively hacking out companies and infrastructure. It’s a sort of Cold War.
in the case of iran, it's hard to imagine it wouldn't be in retaliation for the infrastructure in iran that america has destroyed, so a cold war on one side, a hot war on the other.
Are you being diliberately obtuse? The U.S under Bush Jr. called them a member of the Axis of Evil. In response they called themselves and their allies the Axis of Resistance.
Actually if you read your own link - the BBC is just saying that the Telegraph reported this.
And the same BBC article says that the Telegraph reported it as "the power plant was shut down for four days", whereas on the other hand, the UK Government DESNZ said it only "affected a small-scale generator" not even an entire power plant.
It's always difficult in these situations to read through the FUD and see what the truth is.
This point cannot be overstated - famously the Torygraph for its stance should always have been treated with a degree of scepticism under former editors but such journalistic standards it ever had are now long and completely defunct. A rubbish-laden agitprop comic.
If I were an incompetent manager that need to oversee crumble infrastructure, I'd like to blame my problems on evil hackers from the other side of the world.
In what way does it not look real? On the contrary a significant portion of the population seems to be totally swooned by Iranian propaganda and is not aware they are a malicious actor and have been for decades conducting much worse things on foreign soil than hacks
It's more that a lot of people stopeed being swooned by US propaganda, and woke up to the fact that the US is a malicious actor and have been for decades, conducting much worse things on foreign soil than hacks.
I, personally, have a lot more mistrust towards the US than I have towards Iran. Mostly because Iran has very limited power to affect me negatively.
I don’t think anyone in the west are swooned by Iran. Heck, a lot of Iranians aren’t even swooned by the Iranian propaganda.
What I think you’re doing is misinterpreting the wests disgust at Trumps war with Iran as favouring Iran when in fact what we actually feel is disdain for both parties.
Because power plants need to coordinate to serve the grid, and there is currently a single Interconnected Network of computers out there. Would it be a good idea to create a secondary network for power control and similar critical functions, completely isolated from the internet and from any outside countries? Perhaps - but it doesn't even seem to be on the horizon for now.
There are plenty of reports that this happens and at least as of a couple years ago wasn't even that uncommon. Including CCC talks. People want to do remote maintenance, and apparently not everyone has a good enough internal IT to put this traffic on a VPN
I find it difficult to believe that a power plant doesn't have enough resources to employ at least one person who could implement a VPN - even if it's just some cousin of a senior manager.
A VPN is not some foolproof system that guarantees you can't be hacked. If you're connected to the internet, people can probe your systems. Heck, Stuxnet proved they can do it even if you aren't.
I would hope critical infrastructure would have someone on site 24/7. The Internet could go out, roads blocked, and weather too dangerous for a helicopter and you'd still want power to flow. If people want to work remotely, they could have a human-bridged air gap where change instructions are followed by someone on-site.
I don't know about power plants, but for critical water infrastructure, there's usually not even a building for someone to sit in 24/7 and at least 99% of the time there would be nothing for them to do.
Serious answer: there's a big plan to network everything for metrology purposes. At the very least feeding real time frequency, voltage and phase information from every point of interest on the grid into a big dashboard.
It's likely that much of this stuff is still running on Windows XP which doesn't even receive updates. But of course it's still exposed to the internet.
Please, not this juvenile “I disagree with the political leaning of a newspaper so I demand everyone else boycott it” student union behaviour.
All sources have their biases. I could come up with several examples of the BBC and Guardian reporting very dubiously, for example (recently the BBC spliced together clips of the US President to make it seem he said something completely fictitious). Few sources are a paragon of truth.
How about we just think critically, and think -independently- about the media we consume. Ignore the authoritarian blow-hards who think their choice of media is the only valid choice for the rest of us.
It is either the fact most major infrastructure in the UK seems to be run on computer systems introduced by a man with no knowledge and struggles to turn on a computer. Or it is the start of a UK government attempt to reduce freedoms by stating look there are naughty terrorists out there that will do harm to the UK if we don't restrict programs and usage of systems.
I imagine the former, but it will be used for the latter.
The media is trying to manufacturer consent for a deeply unpopular war of choice that has already been lost. That's so weird. Why would Iran do this? They've already won.
Nothing will change the fact that this war has been a complete strategic defeat for the US and its allies. This is the beginning of the end of dismantling the world order created by the US for the benefit of the US after 1945. That's how this will be written about in history books.
What goes around, comes around. What was the name of the SCADA hack dropped via USB drives in Iranian parking lots which brought down their centrifuges?
Coming soon:
* Iran caused fall of German manufacturing
* Iranian investors caused housing shortage in Netherlands
* Iranians are pushing French to protest against pension age reforms
That reads like a scare story for MPs so they approve more money to some dodgy outfit that will save us all from the ever growing axis of evil...again.
This is greatly downplaying the hacking that has been made public, hasn’t been made public, and is continuously ongoing. Water treatment plants just publicly got hit in Canada and USA.
The simple truth right now is that China, Iran, and North Korea, are actively hacking out companies and infrastructure. It’s a sort of Cold War.
in the case of iran, it's hard to imagine it wouldn't be in retaliation for the infrastructure in iran that america has destroyed, so a cold war on one side, a hot war on the other.
It seems unwise to attack UK when US attacks you.
> It seems unwise to attack UK when US attacks you.
UK's involvement in the 2026 Iran War:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_involvement_in_...
United Kingdom and the Gaza "war":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_and_the_Gaza_wa...
They shot down some drones and lent an army base? Hardly rousing support. If I’m not mistaken, Jordan also shot down some drones, are they next up?
I’ll agree with gp, in any case seems unwise to give the UK cause to further involve themselves.
Russian too, but yes we are in the first Great Cyber War that’s been raging since at least 2022
>The simple truth right now is that China, Iran, and North Korea, are actively hacking out companies and infrastructure.
What for?
Those same MPs decided, for example, that it should be mandatory for EV chargers to be internet connected.
They could do with a dose of reality, IMHO.
You know Iran itself refers its own side as the axis right?
They lost Syria so there's no axis
Are you being diliberately obtuse? The U.S under Bush Jr. called them a member of the Axis of Evil. In response they called themselves and their allies the Axis of Resistance.
Anything from the Telegraph should be treated as suspect and an alternative source should be found.
The BBC reported on it many many hours ago at the same time [1] with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero confirming there was an incident.
[1]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce9793g34yvo
Actually if you read your own link - the BBC is just saying that the Telegraph reported this.
And the same BBC article says that the Telegraph reported it as "the power plant was shut down for four days", whereas on the other hand, the UK Government DESNZ said it only "affected a small-scale generator" not even an entire power plant.
It's always difficult in these situations to read through the FUD and see what the truth is.
> the Telegraph reported
I would find it more trustworthy a report from my toilet hours after I ate alphabet soup.
This point cannot be overstated - famously the Torygraph for its stance should always have been treated with a degree of scepticism under former editors but such journalistic standards it ever had are now long and completely defunct. A rubbish-laden agitprop comic.
Every actual grown up treats every news source like this.
The people who give us this sort of wisdom discredit themselves by proving they relate like credulous children to whatever news source they are using.
“Every news source lies equally and is equally untrustworthy” does not sound like grown up analysis, Mr. Caulfield
If I were an incompetent manager that need to oversee crumble infrastructure, I'd like to blame my problems on evil hackers from the other side of the world.
This story does not look real.
In what way does it not look real? On the contrary a significant portion of the population seems to be totally swooned by Iranian propaganda and is not aware they are a malicious actor and have been for decades conducting much worse things on foreign soil than hacks
It's more that a lot of people stopeed being swooned by US propaganda, and woke up to the fact that the US is a malicious actor and have been for decades, conducting much worse things on foreign soil than hacks.
I, personally, have a lot more mistrust towards the US than I have towards Iran. Mostly because Iran has very limited power to affect me negatively.
I don’t think anyone in the west are swooned by Iran. Heck, a lot of Iranians aren’t even swooned by the Iranian propaganda.
What I think you’re doing is misinterpreting the wests disgust at Trumps war with Iran as favouring Iran when in fact what we actually feel is disdain for both parties.
You mean like stuxnet?
Oh, wait…
Why would a power plant system be exposed to internet in the first place
Because power plants need to coordinate to serve the grid, and there is currently a single Interconnected Network of computers out there. Would it be a good idea to create a secondary network for power control and similar critical functions, completely isolated from the internet and from any outside countries? Perhaps - but it doesn't even seem to be on the horizon for now.
DRM license verification
Ofc. For the Stuxnet vulnerability.
There are plenty of reports that this happens and at least as of a couple years ago wasn't even that uncommon. Including CCC talks. People want to do remote maintenance, and apparently not everyone has a good enough internal IT to put this traffic on a VPN
I find it difficult to believe that a power plant doesn't have enough resources to employ at least one person who could implement a VPN - even if it's just some cousin of a senior manager.
A VPN is not some foolproof system that guarantees you can't be hacked. If you're connected to the internet, people can probe your systems. Heck, Stuxnet proved they can do it even if you aren't.
To enable work from home?
I would hope critical infrastructure would have someone on site 24/7. The Internet could go out, roads blocked, and weather too dangerous for a helicopter and you'd still want power to flow. If people want to work remotely, they could have a human-bridged air gap where change instructions are followed by someone on-site.
I don't know about power plants, but for critical water infrastructure, there's usually not even a building for someone to sit in 24/7 and at least 99% of the time there would be nothing for them to do.
Maybe we bring back the "lighthouse keeper" type jobs for remote infrastructure
More likely windows updates.
Serious answer: there's a big plan to network everything for metrology purposes. At the very least feeding real time frequency, voltage and phase information from every point of interest on the grid into a big dashboard.
It's likely that much of this stuff is still running on Windows XP which doesn't even receive updates. But of course it's still exposed to the internet.
Telegraph.co.uk is a tabloid rage bait publication that produces propaganda. Until there are more sources, this should be considered fake news.
The BBC reported on it many many hours ago at the same time [1] with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero confirming there was an incident.
[1]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce9793g34yvo
The BBC’s just reported that the telegraph reported it was Iranians. Not that it actually was…
Please, not this juvenile “I disagree with the political leaning of a newspaper so I demand everyone else boycott it” student union behaviour.
All sources have their biases. I could come up with several examples of the BBC and Guardian reporting very dubiously, for example (recently the BBC spliced together clips of the US President to make it seem he said something completely fictitious). Few sources are a paragon of truth.
How about we just think critically, and think -independently- about the media we consume. Ignore the authoritarian blow-hards who think their choice of media is the only valid choice for the rest of us.
Let me guess, SCADA system is somehow accessible from outside.
It is either the fact most major infrastructure in the UK seems to be run on computer systems introduced by a man with no knowledge and struggles to turn on a computer. Or it is the start of a UK government attempt to reduce freedoms by stating look there are naughty terrorists out there that will do harm to the UK if we don't restrict programs and usage of systems.
I imagine the former, but it will be used for the latter.
Both can be true at the same time.
The timing of this seems weird. The UK uses much more energy in the winter, so this isn't going to bring the grid down or anything.
This just seems like a wasted attack, alerting us to the vulnerability.
The media is trying to manufacturer consent for a deeply unpopular war of choice that has already been lost. That's so weird. Why would Iran do this? They've already won.
Nothing will change the fact that this war has been a complete strategic defeat for the US and its allies. This is the beginning of the end of dismantling the world order created by the US for the benefit of the US after 1945. That's how this will be written about in history books.
Did iran win? Their economy is on the brink of collapse with no relief in sight, and countries are investing in infrastructure to bypass the strait.
And sure oil prices have gone up, but not doomsday scenario prices.
A bit of a pyrrhic victory if you insist on defining that as a victory.
Sometimes everyone's a loser.
Gives "Not found." now. Maybe retired?
What goes around, comes around. What was the name of the SCADA hack dropped via USB drives in Iranian parking lots which brought down their centrifuges?
Stuxnet.