SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Security researchers were tracking a breach at a California university when they stumbled onto a bigger problem: Cyber-attackers had opened a pathway into the networks running the United States' power grid.
Digital clues pointed to Iranian hackers. And researchers found that the hackers had taken engineering drawings of dozens of power plants.
The drawings were so detailed that experts say skilled attackers could have used them — along with other tools and malicious code — to knock out electricity flowing to millions of homes.
An Associated Press investigation has found that breach is not unique.
Top experts say about a dozen times in the last decade, sophisticated foreign hackers have gained enough remote access to control the operations networks that keep the lights on.
These intrusions have not caused cascading blackouts. But Alejandro Mayorkas, the deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security says, "we are not where we need to be" on cybersecurity.
Cox Media Group
