FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has confirmed news reports that Russian hacker’s cyber attacked 5 nuclear power stations in the United States in May this year. And the affected networks include aging nuclear generating facility at Wolf Creek owned by Westar Energy, another two other facilities at Great Plains Energy and Kansas Electric Power Cooperative.
The law enforcement, however, was not willing to disclose the names of other two facilities for reasons best known to them.
In a formal email written to some of the renowned media sources, which includes Cybersecurity Insiders the DHS specified that the attacks received an “amber” terrorism threat rating from Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory System.
The attacks were launched in the form of credential spear phishing to map infiltrated networks and targeted some of the highly designated officials working for the nuclear facility with phony resumes embedded with malicious software and watering hole attacks.
Bloomberg reports that the Prima Facie of FBI terms Russia as the chief suspect. The news report adds that a state funded hacking group from Russia was designated with the job of attacking all the networks of the critical infrastructure of United States in May 2015. And they succeeded in finishing their first assignment by hacking the email servers of Mrs. Clinton.
FBI and CIA have issued a joint warning in June this year saying that all critical infrastructure managed by public and private utilities were prone to cyber attacks from state funded actors. So, they cautioned every business operating in the US to keep their cyber defenses updated and super active.
