Biggest solar storm in years races toward Earth, could disrupt power grid, GPS+more

marbro · Mar 7, 2012

After hurtling through space for a day and a half, a massive cloud of charged particles is due to arrive early Thursday and could disrupt utility grids, airline flights, satellite networks and GPS services, especially in northern areas. But the same blast could also paint colorful auroras farther from the poles than normal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...e/2012/03/07/gIQAkaKlxR_story.html?tid=pm_pop

Doesnt look too serious but I wonder if there could be massive blackouts?

waltky · Mar 8, 2012

Strong solar storm to hit Earth ...

Fears of disruption as big solar storm set to hit Earth
7 March 2012 - A strong solar storm is expected to hit Earth shortly, and experts warn it could disrupt power grids, satellite navigations systems and plane routes.

The storm - the largest in five years - will unleash a torrent of charged particles between 06:00 GMT and 10:00 GMT, US weather specialists say. They say it was triggered by a pair of massive solar flares earlier this week. It means there is a good chance of seeing the northern lights at higher latitudes, if the skies are clear. The effects will be most intense in polar regions, and aircraft may be advised to change their routings to avoid these areas. In the UK, the best chance to see them will be on Thursday night, the British Geological Survey says.

Complex network

"It's hitting us right in the nose," said Joseph Kunches, an expert at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa). He described the storm as the Sun's version of Super Tuesday - in a reference to the US Republican primaries and caucuses in 10 states. "Space weather has gotten very interesting over the past 24 hours," Mr Kunches added.

The charged particles are expected to hit Earth at 4,000,000 mph (6,400,000 km/h), and Noaa predicts the storm will last until Friday morning. Images of from the Sun's region where the flares happened show a complex network of sunspots indicating a large amount of stored magnetic energy. Other solar magnetic storms have been observed in recent decades. One huge solar flare in 1972 cut off long-distance telephone communication in the US state of Illinois.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17295337
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waltky · Dec 14, 2014

Granny says Obama needs to kick some Iranian butt a-fore our lights go out...

Exclusive: Iran hackers may target U.S. energy, defense firms, FBI warns
12/13/14 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned U.S. businesses to be on the alert for a sophisticated Iranian hacking operation whose targets include defense contractors, energy firms and educational institutions, according to a confidential agency document.

The operation is the same as one flagged last week by cyber security firm Cylance Inc as targeting critical infrastructure organizations worldwide, cyber security experts said. Cylance has said it uncovered more than 50 victims from what it dubbed Operation Cleaver, in 16 countries, including the United States. The FBI's confidential "Flash" report, seen by Reuters on Friday, provides technical details about malicious software and techniques used in the attacks, along with advice on thwarting the hackers. It asked businesses to contact the FBI if they believed they were victims.

Cylance Chief Executive Stuart McClure said the FBI warning suggested that the Iranian hacking campaign may have been larger than its own research revealed. "It underscores Iran's determination and fixation on large-scale compromise of critical infrastructure," he said. The FBI's technical document said the hackers typically launch their attacks from two IP addresses that are in Iran, but did not attribute the attacks to the Tehran government. Cylance has said it believes Iran's government is behind the campaign, a claim Iran has vehemently denied. An FBI official did not provide further details, but said the agency routinely provides private industry with advisories to help it fend off cyber threats.

The Pentagon and National Security Agency had no immediate comment. Tehran has been substantially increasing investment in its cyber capabilities since 2010, when its nuclear program was hit by the Stuxnet computer virus, widely believed to have been launched by the United States and Israel. Cyber security professionals who investigate cyber attacks said that they are seeing evidence that Iran's investment is paying off. "They are good and have a lot of talent in the country," said Dave Kennedy, CEO of TrustedSEC LLC. "They are definitely a serious threat, no question."

Iranian hackers are increasingly being blamed for sophisticated cyberattacks. Bloomberg Businessweek on Thursday reported that Iranian hacker activists were responsible for a devastating February 2014 attack on casino operator Las Vegas Sands Corp, which crippled thousands of servers by wiping them with destructive malware. It said the hackers sought to punish Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson for comments he made about detonating a nuclear bomb in Iran.

http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-iran-hackers-may-target-u-energy-defense-092030064--sector.html
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waltky · Feb 2, 2016

Power grids are increasingly tempting target for hackers...

National Power Grids Increasingly Targeted in Cyber Attacks
February 01, 2016 | WASHINGTON Ukraines electric power grid is once again under cyberattack, just one month after a similar incident successfully brought down portions of the system and left millions in the dark.

Worse, researchers studying the attacks say the malware believed responsible a new version of the so-called BlackEnergy bug has likely spread to numerous European power grids and is poised to infect many more. The attacks and spreading malware have left cybersecurity analysts scrambling to determine not only which systems are at greatest risk, but who might be responsible. We need to assume its already being deployed around Europe, says Udi Shamir, co-founder and chief security officer for the cybersecurity firm SentinelOne. This is cyber-warfare; we need to wake up and see that this is war.

Shamir and his team recently completed a total reverse engineering of the new BlackEnergy3 bug a technique often used by analysts to learn how bugs work, and possibly who wrote it. What they discovered is that BlackEnergy3 is using the same Microsoft Office vulnerability to spread as its earlier, and less sophisticated, versions, BE1 & BE2. Shamir says thats unusual, because Microsoft patched that hole in 2014. There are a few possible explanations, Shamir told VOA. First, these just might be old systems that havent been updated. Second, someone on the inside might be intentionally spreading this. And third, its possible these bugs have been sleeping in systems for months on end, and theyre only now waking up.

Attribution is notoriously difficult with malware, making it very difficult to conclusively prove who is behind these attacks; however, researchers at the cybersecurity firm iSight previously found similarities between earlier versions of BlackEnergy and the Russian-linked Sandworm malware that targeted NATO infrastructure back in 2014. Shamir found the same similarities in BlackEnergy3, providing his team with suggestions of Russian involvement. The code-style, the clustering, yeah it looks like Russia, Shamir said. Im pretty confident that the origin is from Russia, but I dont have any bulletproof evidence. More troublesome, Shamir says this latest version of BlackEnergy is modular, making it much easier for hackers to quickly change how the malware works, and significantly harder for security analysts to find and root it out.

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Biggest solar storm in years races toward Earth, could disrupt power grid, GPS+more

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