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The book Sandworm by Andy Greenberg also goes a little into depth about attacking powerplants and other industrial control systems. Can highly recommend!

hutzlibu 6y ago
"attacking powerplants and other industrial control systems. Can highly recommend!" Sounds fun, but please not in my neighbourhood ..
- wongarsu 6y ago
  Power grids are typically only designed to tollerate one or two major faults at once, so if you mess with enough powerplants at the same time you might be able to trigger a failure that cascades through the entire powergrid. In the 2006 European Blackout [1] a single poorly executed line cut led to a cascading failure that left 10 million people over 5 countries without power for two hours. So better stay a couple countries away from me with experiments. Or maybe don't, better a benevolent chaos monkey than being hit unprepared by your enemy. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_European_blackout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_European_blackout
  - turminal 6y ago
    A similar thing almost happened recently because of a Romanian power plant. And there was also an incident in Kosovo a few years ago that caused a slight frequency decrease that caused all sorts of problems.
  - hutzlibu 6y ago
    I suppose with the state-level hacking of the powergrid is, most can do it, but won't because the enemy can do so, too. So like the nuclear standoff. Nobody uses it, because the enemy can wreck your shit, too. But the whole grid needs a rework. Also because of renewables and batteries etc. To better react do changing demand and enable a free market, where it is easy to buy and sell power.
fbi-director 6y ago
Seconded!
secfirstmd 6y ago
Yep it's great. Countdown to Zeroday by Kim Setter about Stuxnet is awesome also.
- merlinscholz 6y ago
  Coincidentally, I just ordered this book seconds ago. I've also heard only good things about it!
- Debug_Overload 6y ago
  The book is amazing! The technical analysis by Symantec [1] also makes for a very good complementary read. [1] [PDF] https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2010/11/w32_stuxnet_dossier.pdf https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2010/11/w32_s...
  - secfirstmd 6y ago
    Yeh I've given it to techies and non-techies as it's very readable and suits both audiences.

hutzlibu 6y ago

"attacking powerplants and other industrial control systems. Can highly recommend!" Sounds fun, but please not in my neighbourhood ..

wongarsu 6y ago
Power grids are typically only designed to tollerate one or two major faults at once, so if you mess with enough powerplants at the same time you might be able to trigger a failure that cascades through the entire powergrid. In the 2006 European Blackout [1] a single poorly executed line cut led to a cascading failure that left 10 million people over 5 countries without power for two hours. So better stay a couple countries away from me with experiments. Or maybe don't, better a benevolent chaos monkey than being hit unprepared by your enemy. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_European_blackout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_European_blackout
- turminal 6y ago
  A similar thing almost happened recently because of a Romanian power plant. And there was also an incident in Kosovo a few years ago that caused a slight frequency decrease that caused all sorts of problems.
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  I suppose with the state-level hacking of the powergrid is, most can do it, but won't because the enemy can do so, too. So like the nuclear standoff. Nobody uses it, because the enemy can wreck your shit, too. But the whole grid needs a rework. Also because of renewables and batteries etc. To better react do changing demand and enable a free market, where it is easy to buy and sell power.

fbi-director 6y ago

Seconded!

secfirstmd 6y ago

Yep it's great. Countdown to Zeroday by Kim Setter about Stuxnet is awesome also.

merlinscholz 6y ago
Coincidentally, I just ordered this book seconds ago. I've also heard only good things about it!
Debug_Overload 6y ago
The book is amazing! The technical analysis by Symantec [1] also makes for a very good complementary read. [1] [PDF] https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2010/11/w32_stuxnet_dossier.pdf https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2010/11/w32_s...
- secfirstmd 6y ago
  Yeh I've given it to techies and non-techies as it's very readable and suits both audiences.