Feds Investigate Cyberattack on US Power Plants

Malware that may accept originated in Russia has been targeting the computer networks of nuclear ability plants and other industrial sites in the US, according to federal officials.

SecurityWatch 1 of the targets is the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant near Burlington, Kan., co-ordinate to a report from the Department of Homeland Security and FBI obtained by the New York Times.

The malware appears to come up from several phishing campaigns, according to the report. Hackers created fake resumes for engineering control jobs, laced them with malicious code, and sent them to engineers with admission to the critical systems that control industrial infrastructure. They too compromised legitimate websites that engineers were likely to visit, according to the report.

Some attempts also involved human being-in-the-middle attacks, in which the hackers redirected the engineers' net traffic through their own servers, the study said. The attacks occurred in early on May, just as President Donald Trump signed an executive order to strengthen the nation'due south cybersecurity.

The written report carried an bister alarm, the second highest threat sensitivity rating, co-ordinate to the Times. But the FBI and DHS all the same downplayed the threat.

"There is no indication of a threat to public condom, as whatever potential impact appears to be limited to administrative and business organisation networks," the agencies said in a joint statement to the Times.

Russian hackers are the main suspects in the attacks, Bloomberg reported, citing US officials who are investigating vulnerabilities in the electrical grid. The attacks bear a resemblance to malware that triggered a power outage in Ukraine last year. Ukrainian officials accused Russia of orchestrating that attack, which Moscow denied.

Russian officials likewise rejected the notion that the country was behind the recent US attacks. "We don't pay attention to such anonymous fakes," a Kremlin spokesman told Bloomberg.