Cyber Attacks And Its Effects On The Nation 's Economy

One of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) most important missions is protecting critical infrastructure. Assessing CI vulnerabilities is critical to strengthening their capabilities and ensuring resiliency. Since most of them are privately owned, the Department partners with the private sector in conducting voluntary, non-regulatory vulnerability assessments (“Critical Infrastructure”, 2015). According to Homeland Security (2015), vulnerability assessments are the foundation National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) which outlines how the government and the private sector work together to manage risks to achieve security and resiliency goals (“Critical Infrastructure”, 2015). Protecting America’s electrical power grid is especially complicated because all of the other CIs depend on the energy sector’s

Most ISIS practice customs from the 7th century, but the methods they use to fight a war are 21st century techniques. ISIS have an advanced computer network that uses social media to attract terrorists worldwide to help them attack countries like the United States. Many countries have been victims of cyber attacks but may not realize it until long after the security breach occurred.

Accordingly, this document has been developed to provide information regarding DTL Power and the measures that have been developed and implemented to safeguard its information and information systems from a cyber threat. This document is broken down into several sections that will provide an analysis of DTL Power and the energy sector; as well as the effectiveness of cybersecurity technology/policies in the energy sector, the team’s cyber strategy, and budget.

To detect a cyberattack on the power grid, Western Interconnection should implement a system that will allow public and private authorities to receive Indications and Warning (I&W) when a cyberattack is in its early phase. Koester and Cohen (2012) discuss their Electric Power Grid Indications & Warning Tool in their paper. The purpose of this tool is “to provide near real-time I&W to alert private and public sector authorities when the likely causes of outage events are malicious activity.” (Koester & Cohen, 2012, p. 1). The tool minimizes false alarms due to severe weather and high temperatures. Implementing this solution will allow administrators at the Western Interconnection power grid to take precautionary measures as necessary. For example, the substations can be manually shutdown in case of a cyberattack, to prevent potential damage and spread of malware.

Throughout this research we have shown the affects of a cyber attack on our water supply. We have also evaluated the impact that a cyber-attack could have on our water supply. Lastly we looked at the probable third and fourth order effects from the cyber-attack on this critical infrastructure to include the effects on other critical infrastructures that may be affected by the initial cyber-attack. If we do not take the actions of those who seek to harm us through either a physical attack or cyber attack seriously and work as a team we will fail as a

Within the realm of open source information, a trove of resources are readily available delineating locations of individual power plants, major electrical lines, and sub stations serving the United States and Illinois. Most apparent is not necessarily the ease of access to information, but how piecing together the varied, disparate data can be used to create a picture that show location, connectivity, and potential vulnerabilities to national and state-level power grid.

The 2003 northeast blackout that saw about 50 million people from the northeast US and southeast Canada lose power for about 2 days at the cost of $6 billion dollars according to JR Minkel (Minkle) and was the biggest blackout in North American history (Minkle). The disaster lead to a report that showed the blackout was caused by a combination of human error and equipment failure. To prevent issues like this in the future a “smart grid” needs to be developed that would monitor and repair itself in the event of problems. Essentially computers and applications would be the first responder when there is an equipment failure on the grid. The problem with this solution is that by placing more of the control of the power grid into the hands of computers and applications, it opens up the grid to cyber-attacks. The economic impact of a total or even partial failure of the power grid is astronomical and makes a very appealing target to those who wish to cause

Electricity is one of the most productive forces known but it can also be dangerous and detrimental to infrastructure and security of assets across the Nation if it is lost or compromised. Physical and cybersecurity could be described under the steps to ensure the homeland security role is met, however the AEP’s dependence on technology in order to succeed cannot be understated. Every year the cybersecurity realm grows and the support for securing and managing cyber seems to fall further behind. Several high profile attacks affecting financial, healthcare, retail and entertainment industries demonstrate the potential impact of the threats” (AEP 2015, 2). These events do prepare the AEP in assessing our own cybersecurity procedures and resources to determine where we may need to strengthen the defense of our company but also increases our awareness of how real the threat is (AEP 2015, 2).

The explosion of these new technologies, especially an Internet-like communications network, may introduce some new threats to the security of the smart grid. In the smart grid network there are three crucial aspects of security that may be threatened due to the CIA-triad. The CIA-triad comprises on three basic principles of security issues: Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability [8]. These principles are illustrated in a triangle secure system in Figure 2. The three aspects of the CIA-triad are defined as follows.

As the power industry expands and improves the technological functionality, control, and monitoring components used in generation, transmission, and distribution, the vulnerabilities of the power grid to cybersecurity attacks greatly increase. Not all cybersecurity attacks are preventable, but the current security regulation and compliance requirements set by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) are not adequate to prevent even the most common types of attacks. When attacks occur, they can lead to lengthy system blackouts where the impact may range from minor inconvenience to possible public harm in a variety of ways including loss of access to food, fuel, money, communication, asset protection and security, and even healthcare.

There are often times when a document covering as many aspects as were covered by the 9/11 Commission in which it becomes difficult to say definitively whether the results were effective or ineffective. This is true when speaking about whether the government has met the recommendations that were made by the 9/11 Commission. The federal government has been effective in meeting certain recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, however they have also failed appallingly in certain areas as well.

SCADA Systems is considered a vital aspect of Critical Infrastructures, which is tied to all other Critical Infrastructures. In the modern age where automation is emerging as a normal part of daily function, the need for a system to monitor and control these automated processes is required. While automation yields an overabundance of benefits such as reduced operating costs and efficiency, it is not without flaws. SCADA Systems are like any other program in the sense that it is vulnerable to attacks. As the automation continues to evolve, security threats will parallel the growth and demands innovative protection methods. This paper will provide an overview of SCADA Systems functions, vulnerabilities, and protection suggestions.

In 2007 Estonia was one of the most developed nations in Europe in terms of information and communication technology advancement. Estonia had a common practice of relying on the internet for business transactions. In the early weeks of spring, Estonia was hit by a series of politically motivated cyber-attacks. Numerous parties and organisation suffered different forms of denial of service. The main parties included the Estonian government agencies, schools, banks and Internet Service Providers. The motivation for the cyber attack was due to the fact that the Estonian government made the decision to move a Soviet memorial of World War II from its previous or initial location in central Tallinn to a military cemetery. This resulted to an outburst and riots in the Estonian streets, violence towards the Ambassador of Estonia, Russia implementing indirect economic sanctions and the most relevant, politically motivated cyber-attack against Estonia. The Estonian state wasn’t critically affected from the cyber attack of 2007, since to a high extend the state functions and objects of demanding information infrastructure were not interrupted. However, the world received a wake up call on the new and emerging threats of cyber attacks.

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in the article Cyber Threats to Mobile Phones, phones are now sharing hardware and software similar to a PC and becoming each time more like a PC. Therefore, the risks of being hacked are increasing, allowing hackers to attack mobile devices the same way as if they were doing it with a regular PC. Personal and professional information are more often stored on mobile devices therefore it is imperative to have our data secure. Security solutions for mobile devices are not as broad or high-tech as those for PCs. The majority of mobile security relies on the proper use and smart choices that the user makes on a daily basis to be protected against cyber attacks. Even the most careful person can be attacked but the possibilities of that happening are less when you are proactive.

The old generation of electrical power grid has taken care of our needs in the past. However, as our world progress technologically, so do the expectations from different infrastructures around us. Smart grid is an initiative to completely restructure the electrical power grid to meet the current and future requirements of its clients. Upgrading our electrical power grid could bring novel security vulnerabilities into the system. Thus, security is one of the key parts in smart grid technology. Smart grid technology also puts more reliability demands on WAN (wide area network) infrastructures. [1]