Chances are you didn’t hear about it when it happened or the investigation that followed. Last April just outside of San Jose, California the grid system came under direct attack.
Investigators have yet to identify any suspects, but the attack seems to have been well planned. First, someone accessed an underground vault housing fiber optic telephone cables and cut off communications to a large PG&E Substation.
Then, for 19 minutes, someone opened fire from long-range.
The sniper apparently utilized 7.62x39mm rounds, such as those used in an AK-47, to target the oil-driven cooling systems for 17 large transformers. The shell casings found at the scene had been wiped clean of fingerprints. According to Newsmax none of the transformers exploded, but the damage was significant enough for PG&E to force their electricity feeds to reroute through another station in an effort to prevent a widespread blackout.
As of yet police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have no leads. The evidence suggests any number of scenarios with the highest likelihood being a coordinated attack involving a team. But because of its simplicity it’s possible that the attack could have been orchestrated by a lone individual.
Whatever the case, the event prompted the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Jon Wellinghoff to call it, “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred.”
The 64-year-old Nevadan, who was appointed to FERC in 2006 by President George W. Bush and stepped down in November, said he gave closed-door, high-level briefings to federal agencies, Congress and the White House last year. As months have passed without arrests, he said, he has grown increasingly concerned that an even larger attack could be in the works.
He said he was going public about the incident out of concern that national security is at risk and critical electric-grid sites aren’t adequately protected.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn’t think a terrorist organization caused the Metcalf attack, said a spokesman for the FBI in San Francisco. Investigators are “continuing to sift through the evidence,” he said.
Some people in the utility industry share Mr. Wellinghoff’s concerns, including a former official at PG&E, Metcalf’s owner, who told an industry gathering in November he feared the incident could have been a dress rehearsal for a larger event.
“This wasn’t an incident where Billy-Bob and Joe decided, after a few brewskis, to come in and shoot up a substation,” Mark Johnson, retired vice president of transmission for PG&E, told the utility security conference, according to a video of his presentation. “This was an event that was well thought out, well planned and they targeted certain components.”
The most significant power grid attack in U.S. history failed to be reported in any detail by officials or the mainstream media, likely because they did not want to panic the populace.
Could this have been a test for a larger scale event? Certainly.
Since then, what steps have been taken to protect the grid from such attacks, or even other potential scenarios like electro-magnetic pulse devices or solar flares that could wipe out the national power grid within seconds? None.
A single individual could have carried out such an attack. Cut the phone lines. Take aim. Open fire. It’s simple, really.
Now consider the potential damage if a rogue terrorist group or state-sponsored initiative launched a coordinated attack across 50 to 100 critical nodes all over the United States. Such an attack could bring the country to a complete standstill, leaving economic destruction and large-scale destabilization in its wake. A couple of days are manageable, but if the right equipment were to be targeted then it’s possible that repairs would take up to 18 months because many transformer components are sourced from foreign nations and have long build times.
The telecommunications systems, power grid, water utilities, transportation systems, oil refineries and other critical industries across America are, as reported by U.S. Cyber Command, completely exposed to attack. It could come in the form of a cyber vulnerability, as we saw in Illinois when a utility station’s water pump systems overheated due to a reported digital security breach or when our drone fleet was hacked in the middle east. Or, it could be a physical attack like the one in California, with future incidents potentially involving larger transformers and explosives instead of AK-47′s.
The possibilities exist. Our government knows this, as evidenced by the comments of outgoing DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano who recently said that a crippling attack against U.S. infrastructure elements is inevitable.
The fact is that our infrastructure is outdated and exposed. It will not be repaired any time soon because the costs run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Thus, the only real option for Americans is to expect that such an event is coming, and to prepare for it.
Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, who has retired and now lives well outside of populated areas, says people should get out of major cities and have a retreat to avoid the fall-out from a grid collapse. His fears are substantiated by a recent report that claims 9 out of 10 Americans would die within a year of the electricity going out.
But whether you head out to the boonies or stay local, even the Federal Emergency Management Agency recommends having an emergency supply because, as they’ve admitted, any response in a catastrophic scenario will be slow to come. This means that having a preparedness plan complete with evacuation strategies, food supplies, water and other considerations will be essential to survival.
Re: 'Military-Style' Raid On Power Station Spooks U.S.
Interesting catch on the article title. Domestic. What exactly, in the facts as we know them, says domestic. Yes, AKs are popular among droves here, but there are many manufacturers of that weapon with varying grades of quality. Add that it is a weapon used around the world. While I would not rule out a domestic source of the attack, it is not proven to be so either.
Lawmakers are pushing to impose federal standards for protecting the country's electric grid from attack in the wake of a new report about a sniper assault on a California electrical substation last year that has raised fears the power grid is vulnerable to terrorism.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she and fellow senators plan to ask the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has jurisdiction over the electric grid's reliability, to "set minimum security standards for critical substations."
The April 16, 2013 the attack on Pacific Gas & Electric’s Metcalf transmission substation involved snipping AT&T fiber-optic lines to knock out phone and 911 service, and firing shots into a PG&E substation, causing outages. The assault had not been widely publicized until The Wall Street Journal reported new details in a story on Wednesday.
The FBI is the lead agency in the investigation and an agency spokesman told the newspaper it doesn’t think the incident was a terror attack. However, Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the time, called it "the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the U.S. power grid that has ever occurred."
The incident began when intruders lifted heavy manhole covers at about 1:30 a.m. in two places on Monterey Highway south of San Jose, climbed under the road, and cut AT&T fiber optic cables, temporarily knocking out 911 service and phone service.
In a 19-minute period, gunmen fired more than 100 rounds into substation equipment, disabling 17 of 20 big transformers, causing about $16 million in damage, according to The Wall Street Journal. No arrests have been made in the case.
In December, during an oversight hearing, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., described "an unprecedented and sophisticated attack on an electric grid substation with military-style weapons. Communications were disrupted. The attack inflicted substantial damage."
He said he would withhold details of the incident to avoid harming the investigation but added he had been in touch with the FBI about it.
One proposal being discussed in Congress is would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the power to write and impose interim rules on grid defenses. The utility industry would still be able to influence any permanent requirements, according to the Journal.
Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said "the last thing I want to do is regulate any industry." But he told the newspaper utilities must do more to protect the grid for the sake of national security.
Under current law, the commission has to accept or reject proposals written by an industry-dominated group, but cannot alter them, according to the report.
Some utility industry executives told the Journal it would be difficult to come up with rules for improving security that would work in both urban and rural areas.
"One size fits all may not get you true resiliency," said Lisa Barton, executive vice president of transmission for American Electric Power, adding that increasing protections could be costly. "I'm not saying it isn't worth it," she said.
Re: 'Military-Style' Raid On Power Station Spooks U.S.
Good observation, HSD protecting our actual infrastructure. Seems that department grew so big so fast and so obscene because of lack of things to do. I mean, that's what happens. Give that machine a real task and it might be a good thing.
The threat of a breakdown of our national power infrastructure has been a growing concern for the last decade. With the invention of “Super EMP” electro-magnetic pulse weapons, the possibility of Carrington-class solar flares, and the potential for cyber attackers to remotely compromise our interconnected computer systems, there may come a time in our country’s future when our entire way of life is threatened because we no longer have access to the one thing that keeps it all moving – electricity. Outgoing Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano recently suggested that such a widespread outage is imminent and Congresswoman Yvette Clarke who is a senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee concluded that the chance of a serious geo-magnetic event crippling our power grid is 100%.
The threat is real.
And as recently as last year Americans got a taste of what such an attack may look like. Though not reported at the time out of national security concerns, it was recently revealed that an entire domestic power grid sub-station came under attack in what seems to be a professionally executed assault. The attackers first cut phone lines from the sub-station and they then proceeded to fire 100 rounds from long-range at critical components such as the generators that keep the station cooling systems operational. This resulted in millions of dollars worth of damage and a reported electrical outage that spanned nearly a month.
According to officials this was a sophisticated attack likely involving the coordination of multiple individuals. And they’re not the only ones who think so.
(Closed Circuit cameras capture San Josa, CA power grid sniper attack)
US Navy Seals have said it is a carbon copy of how they would carry out such an operation.
The FBI says it does not believe the attack was terrorism. No one has been arrested.
There are differing opinions at government agencies about what happened. Head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Jon Wellinghoff called it “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred.”
Investigators don’t know for sure who did it or why, but it’s clear that our power grid has not been secured, despite billions of dollars being spent on the security of the homeland over the last decade.
If a few individuals with an AK-47 are capable of bringing down a sub-station and 17 massive transformers that provide power to hundreds of thousands of people, consider what would happen if a rogue terrorist organization or foreign-sponsored military teams were to target 100 key power stations that provide the electricity for tens of millions of people.
Next time they might not be bringing an AK-47. They could target sub-station components with easily obtained explosive through U.S. black markets and take down scores of transformers that switch electricity across the grid. Should those transformers be destroyed (and not just damaged as they were in this recent attack), then it could take months or years to restore conditions to 100%.
Most transformer components are manufactured overseas and production time in opportune conditions is about 18 months. If hundreds of these transformers were all of a sudden destroyed there is simply no way to bring everything back online in any reasonable amount of time.
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Re: 'Military-Style' Raid On Power Station Spooks U.S.
Originally Posted by American Patriot
"One Second After"
The book.
Read it.
I did, I enjoyed it as well.
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
-- Theodore Roosevelt
Electric grid compounds across the country have faced an uptick in unauthorized intrusions by unknown individuals, causing concern that the U.S. grid is “inherently vulnerable” to widespread sabotage, according to a recent oversight report issued by New Jersey’s Regional Operations Intelligence Center (ROIC), which monitors the threat level.
Following at least eight “reports of intrusions at electrical grid facilities in New Jersey” from October 2013 until January 2014, the ROIC’s Intelligence & Analysis Threat Unit issued a report warning that the U.S. electrical grid is “inherently vulnerable” to attacks that could wipe out power across large swaths of the country.
The ROIC report, released in late February, is marked as “unclassified” but designated “for official use only.” New Jersey State Police Spokesman Trooper Jeff Flynn confirmed that a report of this nature had been commissioned by ROIC when contacted by the Washington Free Beacon.
The multiple incidents of “sabotage” and crime outlined in the report “highlight the grid’s vulnerabilities to potential threats,” according to a copy of the report obtained by the Free Beacon.
U.S. officials and experts have increasingly warned over the years that the electrical grid could be a prime target for terrorists or others seeking to damage the country’s infrastructure and disrupt daily life.
The concern is that many of the incidents outlined in the ROIC report could be a sign that preparations are under away for a larger, coordinated attack on the grid.
Highly sensitive areas of the electrical grid were found to be lightly monitored, leaving them vulnerable to attack, according to the report.
“The electrical grid—a network of power generating plants, transmission lines, substations, and distribution lines—is inherently vulnerable,” the report said.
“Transmission substations are critical links in the electrical grid, making it possible for electricity to move long distances and serving as hubs for intersecting power lines,” according to the report. “Many of the grid’s important components sit out in the open, often in remote locations, protected by little more than cameras and chain-link fences.”
While the incidents are greatly concerning to security officials—and remain mostly unsolved—the ROIC “currently does not have enough information to classify the New Jersey incidents listed [in the report] as indicative of pre-operational activity or connect them to a pattern,” according to the report, which does not discount this possibility.
However, the incidents of grid tampering are not isolated to New Jersey.
An unidentified individual in Tucson, Ariz., in January, “removed multiple bolts from an electric tower’s support structure, increasing the potential for collapse and electrical service interruption.”
Authorities suspect that the goal was “sabotage rather than vandalism” due to the “deliberate manner of the bolt removal, including probable acquisition of the requisite tools,” the report said.
In April 2013, “unknown subject(s) fired multiple shots at an electrical transmission substation” in San Jose, Calif., “damaging several transformers,” the report notes. Surveillance video of the incident shows sparks flying across the compound as bullets strike the substation.
“Authorities subsequently discovered intentionally cut fiber optic cables in a manhole,” according to the report. “No motive or suspects have been identified.”
Sabotage has also been reported in Jacksonville, Ark., where in August 2013, “an identified suspect … removed bolts from the base of a high-voltage transmission line tower and tried to bring down the 100-foot tower with a moving train,” according to the report
One month later, “the subject reportedly set a fire at a substation control house.”
In October of that year, “the subject cut into two electrical poles and used a tractor to pull them down, cutting power to thousands of customers,” according to the report.
While the incidents in San Jose received widespread media attention, several of the others did not.
New Jersey has experienced eight separate incidents of a similar nature since last year.
On Jan. 26, for instance, “employees found a hole, approximately three-foot high by two-foot wide, in the perimeter fence of an electric switching and substation in East Rutherford,” according to the report.
Several days before that incident, on Jan. 22, “an identified subject entered a Burlington generating station using false identification,” according to the report. “The subject claimed he had a gun (none found) and a bomb (package cleared).”
Other incidents include break-ins at certain electrical stations and the theft of various on-site materials.
The ROIC concluded that while “the incidents more likely involve vandalism and theft, rather than sabotage,” any type of “intrusion or damage to substations is a critical concern to the power supply and public safety.”
Counterterrorism expert Patrick Poole warned that these attacks could be a “test-run” for a larger act of sabotage.
“While some of these incidents involving substations can be attributed to metal scavenging, it’s planned attacks, much like the one in San Jose, that have officials worried the most and raises a number of questions,” Poole told the Free Beacon. “Why was this substation targeted? What were they trying to accomplish with this attack? Was this a test-run for something larger?”
“What the New Jersey ROIC report shows is that this fits into a larger pattern of incidents, which should be keeping someone at Homeland Security up at night,” Poole said. “The other big question is how many more of these incidents are going unreported?”
The ROIC report outlines several types of suspicious behavior that authorities should be on the lookout for.
These include the “photographing objects or facilities that would not normally be photographed,” instances of individuals “loitering in sensitive areas,” and other types of atypical behavior such as “unfamiliar or out of place persons posing as panhandlers, protesters, vendors, [or] news agents.”
Flynn told the Free Beacon that ROIC aims to analyze and codify various grid incidents across the country in order to “learn from those incidents and apply them to situations here in New Jersey.”
The goal is to reach “potential conclusions to solve potential problems we have in state,” Flynn said in response to questions about the report.
Re: 'Military-Style' Raid On Power Station Spooks U.S.
Posted here and EMP
Re: E M P - (EMP) - e.m.p. - emp - Electromagnetic pulse
Small-scale power grid attack could cause nationwide blackout, study says
FoxNews.com
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The U.S. could suffer a national blackout if attackers knocked out just nine of the country's electric-transmission substations on a hot summer day, according to a previously unreported study by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The study concluded that coordinated attacks in each of the nation's three separate electric systems could cause the entire power network to collapse, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the agency's research.
The commission concluded that the three electrical systems that serve the entire nation could go dark if as few as nine of the country's 55,000 electric-transmission substations were knocked out in the East, the West and in Texas, according to the report.
"This would be an event of unprecedented proportions," Ross Baldick, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, told the newspaper.
According to Wall Street Journal, study's results have been known for months by the White House, Congress and officials at federal agencies, who were briefed by then-FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff and others at the commission.
Wellinghoff has voiced concerns about an April 2013 attack on Pacific Gas & Electric’s transmission substation in Metcalf, Calif., that lasted 52 minutes and knocked out 17 transformers.
The attack started when at least one person entered an underground vault to cut telephone cables, then attackers fired more than 100 shots, causing millions in damage. Workers were able to avert a blackout but it took them 27 days to repair the damage.
No arrests have been made in the case.
A memo prepared at the commission for Wellinghoff before he briefed senior officials last year said "the entire United States grid would be down for at least 18 months, probably longer" if attackers knocked out just nine substations.
The California attack "demonstrates that it does not require sophistication to do significant damage to the U.S. grid," according to the memo, which was written by Leonard Tao, FERC's director of external affairs, and reviewed by The Journal.
The memo suggested that an attack-induced blackout could be particularly long, in part because each of the three regional electric systems—the West, the East and Texas—have limited interconnections, limiting their ability to assist each other in the event of an emergency, The Journal reported.
Executives at several utility companies told the newspaper they are boosting security at their facilities. Virginia-based Dominion Resources Inc., said it planned to spend $300 million to $500 million within seven years to improve security capabilities.
Cheryl LaFleur, acting chairwoman of the FERC, said in a statement released late Wednesday that The Journal's publication of "sensitive material about the grid crosses the line from transparency to irresponsibility, and gives those who would do us harm a roadmap to achieve malicious designs."
"We take seriously our obligation to the American people to protect the reliability and security of our nation's energy infrastructure and to enhance its resilience," LaFleur said. Click here for more from The Wall Street Journal.
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U.S. utility's control system was hacked, says Homeland Security
By Jim Finkle 8 hours ago
BOSTON (Reuters) - A sophisticated hacking group recently attacked a U.S. public utility and compromised its control system network, but there was no evidence that the utility's operations were affected, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
DHS did not identify the utility in a report that was issued this week by the agency's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, or ICS-CERT.
"While unauthorized access was identified, ICS-CERT was able to work with the affected entity to put in place mitigation strategies and ensure the security of their control systems before there was any impact to operations," a DHS official told Reuters on Tuesday.
Such cyber attacks are rarely disclosed by ICS-CERT, which typically keeps details about its investigations secret to encourage businesses to share information with the government. Companies are often reluctant to go public about attacks to avoid potentially negative publicity.
ICS-CERT said in the report posted on its website that investigators had determined the utility had likely been the victim of previous intrusions. It did not elaborate.
The agency said the hackers may have launched the latest attack through an Internet portal that enabled workers to access the utility's control systems. It said the system used a simple password mechanism that could be compromised using a technique known as "brute forcing," where hackers digitally force their way in by trying various password combinations.
Justin W. Clarke, an industrial control security consultant with security firm Cylance Inc, said it is rare for such breaches to be identified by utilities and even more rare for the government to disclose them.
"In most cases, systems that are so antiquated to be susceptible to such brute forcing technologies would not have the detailed logging required to aid in an investigation like this," Clarke said.
DHS also reported another hacking incident involving a control system server connected to "a mechanical device." The agency provided few details about that case, except to say the attacker had access over an extended period of time, though no attempts were made to manipulate the system.
"Internet facing devices have become a serious concern over the past few years," the agency said in the report.
Last year ICS-CERT responded to 256 cyber incident reports, more than half of them in the energy sector. While that is nearly double the agency's 2012 case load, there was not a single incident that caused a major disruption.
Those incidents include hacking into systems through Internet portals exposed over the Web, injecting malicious software through thumb drives, and exploitation of software vulnerabilities.
(Reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Tiffany Wu)
Garkane Energy is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person who shot one of their substations Sunday, knocking out power to nearly all of Kane and Garfield counties.
The reward amount is unprecedented for the power company, as most rewards for vandalism incidents are around $2,500, said Garkane Energy Cooperative spokesman Neal Brown.
"We definitely want to send a message it's a serious offense. We're hoping that large of a reward will lead to an arrest," Brown said.
On Sunday, somebody went to the remote substation located between Kanab and Page, Arizona, and fired at least three rounds with a high-powered rifle into the main transformer, knocking out power to an estimated 13,000 customers in Kanab, Big Water, Orderville, Glendale, Hatch and surrounding towns in Garfield County.
"Just from the looks of it, it looked more criminal than vandalism because they knew exactly where to shoot it and they shot it multiple times in the same spot," Brown said. "For somebody to know exactly where that substation is and how to hit it exactly like he did, (it) seems like he'd have to have knowledge of that."
He said the company is not aware of any disgruntled current or former employees.
Power was knocked out for eight hours. A portable transformer was brought to the substation to restore power.
Damage to the main transformer that was shot was expected to reach $1 million and take six months to a year to fully repair, Brown said. The portable substation is now being monitored by an on-site security guard 24 hours a day, he said.
The Kane County Sheriff's Office believes part of the reason for the large reward is due to the amount of damage the vandalism caused.
Anyone with information on the incident can call the Kane County Sheriff's Office at 435-644-2349.
Re: 'Military-Style' Raid On Power Station Spooks U.S.
Another test of the grid.
Here's the deal. IF an EMP goes off and it doesn't take the majority of the grid down, there are actors who will go complete the task. This is what they are testing.
If you can remove power from a substantial portion of the US population, you will induce them to riot, destroy, burn down cities, and kill one another.
I do NOT see this going on much longer. It's.. like four weeks from election. I see something BIG happening. Russia is pushing the envelope. Now we have terrorist attacking the grid again. There are designated ISPs and companies being probed for major attacks (have you guys heard that yet?)
The US is pressing to attack Assad again. Hmmm. Russia is protecting him, we want to kill him. How's that gonna play out?
A ship has recently been destroyed. Wonder how many "Contractors" were aboard that vessel who are Americans (were Americans).
Russia ran some bombers over Europe a few days ago.
Russia is testing their defense capabilities by putting their citizens in bunkers.
The United States is LITERALLY doing nothing but shitting themselves over Trump and Clinton.
What the FUCK has happened on this planet, and how do the Aliens see us now????
I really wonder if they are out there watching and rubbing their dirty fly hands together, wait to come here lay maggot eggs in the brains of whomever is left.
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Re: 'Military-Style' Raid On Power Station Spooks U.S.
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Originally Posted by American Patriot
Re: E M P - (EMP) - e.m.p. - emp - Electromagnetic pulse
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