Terrorism

U.S. Risks National Blackout From Small-Scale Attack

Wed, 2014-03-12 23:30 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Margery Schab

Federal Analysis Says Sabotage of Nine Key Substations Is Sufficient for Broad Outage

wsj.com - by Rebecca Smith - March 12, 2014

The U.S. could suffer a coast-to-coast blackout if saboteurs knocked out just nine of the country's 55,000 electric-transmission substations on a scorching summer day, according to a previously unreported federal analysis.

The study by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded that coordinated attacks in each of the nation's three separate electric systems could cause the entire power network to collapse, people familiar with the research said.

A small number of the country's substations play an outsize role in keeping power flowing across large regions.

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News Release - FERC Directs Development of Physical Security Standards

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Target Hackers Wrote Partly in Russian, Displayed High Skill, Report Finds

Fri, 2014-01-17 16:40 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Target Hackers Wrote Partly in Russian, Displayed High Skill, Report Finds

wsj.com - by Danny Yadron - January 16, 2014

The holiday data breach at Target Corp. TGT -0.94% appeared to be part of a broad and highly sophisticated international hacking campaign against multiple retailers, according to a report prepared by federal and private investigators that was sent to financial-services companies and retailers.

The report offers some of the first details to emerge about the source of the attack that compromised 40 million credit- and debit-card accounts and personal data for 70 million people. It also provided further evidence the attack on Target during peak holiday shopping was part of a concerted effort by skilled hackers.

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