Hackers successfully breach U.S. Department of Energy’s systems 150 times
by JOHN HAYWARD10
BreitBart.com
10 Sep 2015
USA Today reports on some remarkably grim statistics culled from federal records it obtained with a Freedom of Information Act:
Incident reports submitted by federal officials and contractors since late 2010 to the Energy Department’s Joint Cybersecurity Coordination Center shows a near-consistent barrage of attempts to breach the security of critical information systems that contain sensitive data about the nation’s power grid, nuclear weapons stockpile and energy labs.
The records, obtained by USA TODAY through the Freedom of Information Act, show DOE components reported a total of 1,131 cyberattacks over a 48-month period ending in October 2014. Of those attempted cyber intrusions, 159 were successful.
“The potential for an adversary to disrupt, shut down (power systems), or worse … is real here,” said Scott White, Professor of Homeland Security and Security Management and Director of the Computing Security and Technology program atDrexel University. “It’s absolutely real.”
Wow. Does anyone in the Administration think the public should have been told their massive Energy Department – which is primarily concerned with interfering with energy production, not creating it – was hit by hackers over a thousand times, and successfully penetrated on 159 occasions? We needed USA Today to choke the news out of them with a FOIA request?
Energy Department officials would not say whether any sensitive data related to the operation and security of the nation’s power grid or nuclear weapons stockpile was accessed or stolen in any of the attacks, or whether foreign governments are believed to have been involved.
“DOE does not comment on ongoing investigations or possible attributions of malicious activity,” Energy Department spokesman Andrew Gumbiner said in a statement.
The Rest…HERE
