Hackers can bring down the smart grid
Security experts have warned the US government that the introduction of a national system of "intelligent" electrical networks threatened with unprecedented hacker attacks . According to them, with the help of simple equipment costing $ 500, hackers can make an attack that will lead to a cascade disconnect.
Smart grids are a new initiative of the authorities, which is supported by many IT companies, including Google . It allocated as much as $ 4.5 billion from the newly adopted plan to stimulate the US economy. The project provides for the supply of all homes in the country with interactive meters connected to a single information system, as well as an upgrade of the energy infrastructure. Here are the two main advantages of the new approach:
1. Each device (whether it is a washing machine or a server) will be able to independently determine at what time electricity has the lowest cost (at night, in the morning) and automatically start resource-intensive processes at this particular time.
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2. Users will be able to give surplus of their electricity to the general network. For example, to drain there an unnecessary charge from the battery or energy accumulated on solar batteries. And get paid for it.
However, such a system has a number of vulnerabilities, experts say. In their opinion, the weak point is the counters united in one network. In their opinion, a hacker can penetrate the system and produce a massive manipulation of meter readings. Thus, an attacker can initiate the simultaneous launch of millions of household appliances across America. This will immediately cause network overload and cascade shutdown of substations. The problem is that the industry, which has already started producing smart electricity meters (like the Itron company), has not yet developed a common safety standard for them. It feels like they are just in a hurry to master the money allocated from the budget.
Smart grids are a new initiative of the authorities, which is supported by many IT companies, including Google . It allocated as much as $ 4.5 billion from the newly adopted plan to stimulate the US economy. The project provides for the supply of all homes in the country with interactive meters connected to a single information system, as well as an upgrade of the energy infrastructure. Here are the two main advantages of the new approach:
1. Each device (whether it is a washing machine or a server) will be able to independently determine at what time electricity has the lowest cost (at night, in the morning) and automatically start resource-intensive processes at this particular time.
')
2. Users will be able to give surplus of their electricity to the general network. For example, to drain there an unnecessary charge from the battery or energy accumulated on solar batteries. And get paid for it.
However, such a system has a number of vulnerabilities, experts say. In their opinion, the weak point is the counters united in one network. In their opinion, a hacker can penetrate the system and produce a massive manipulation of meter readings. Thus, an attacker can initiate the simultaneous launch of millions of household appliances across America. This will immediately cause network overload and cascade shutdown of substations. The problem is that the industry, which has already started producing smart electricity meters (like the Itron company), has not yet developed a common safety standard for them. It feels like they are just in a hurry to master the money allocated from the budget.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/55285/
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