ENRG - Hackers hit Calif. power grid computers

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Hackers hit California power grid computers SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - A computer system that controls much of the flow of electricity across California was under siege from hackers for at least 17 days during the height of the state's ongoing power crisis, the Los Angeles Times has reported.

The cyber attack, while apparently limited, exposed security lapses in the system that the California Independent Systems Operator (Cal-ISO) uses to oversee most of the state's massive electricity transmission grid and connect to the grid for the western United States.

While some familiar with the breach said hackers came close to gaining access to key parts of the system and could have interrupted the movement of electricity around the power-hungry state, officials at Cal-ISO said the grid was not threatened and that they had remedied the situation.

The Times on Saturday cited a "restricted" internal agency report, which indicated that the attack began as early as April 25 and was not detected until May 11.

"This was very close to being a catastrophic breach," a source familiar with the attack and Cal-ISO's investigation of it, told the Los Angeles Times.

Cal-ISO officials, however, downplayed the event. "It did not affect markets or reliability," said Stephanie McCorkle, a Cal-ISO spokeswoman.

Cal-ISO officials also said there was no link between the hacking and rolling blackouts that hit more than 400,000 utility customers on May 7 and 8.

The report said the main attack appeared to have been launched by someone in China's Guangdong province and routed through China Telecom. Hackers entered the Cal-ISO computers via Internet servers in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Santa Clara, a city in northern California's famed Silicon Valley.

Despite that information, Cal-ISO officials could not be certain where the attack originated.

"We don't know where people are really from," James Sample, the Cal-ISO computer specialist who penned the report, told the Times.

"The only reason China stuck out is because of the recent political agenda China had with the U.S. ... An ambitious U.S. hacker could have posed as a Chinese hacker," Sample said.

The attack came amid heightened Sino-American tensions spawned by the collision of a Chinese military jet and a U.S. spy plane. During that time, hundreds of attacks on U.S. computer systems by what appeared to be Chinese hackers were reported.

The Cal-ISO report said the system breach was discovered when agency investigators found evidence that hackers were trying to break through security firewalls, which guard sensitive parts of a computer system by limiting access to authorised users.

Sample downplayed the incident and said the agency had been anticipating such an event. "It was a compromise, not really an attack," he said.

-- Anonymous, June 09, 2001


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