Chinese Hackers Breached Telvent's Corporate Network & Gained Control of US Power Grid

Telvent - the maker of power-grid control systems and smart meters and whose software and services remotely administers and monitor large sections of the US energy industry has began warning its customers about a sophisticated hacker attack originated from China. Telvent, a division of Schneider Electric, has admitted hackers breached its corporate network, implanted malicious software and lifted sensitive project files. The raid spanned Telvent systems in the US, Canada and Spain, according to a letter sent to the company's customers this month. Criminals can now study the documents for vulnerabilities in the systems, and potentially devise attacks to sabotage nations' electricity distribution networks. It looks like the hackers managed to get past the company firewall and security systems. In letters sent to customers last week, Telvent Canada said the attack happened on September the 10th.

The attackers installed malicious software and stole project files related to one of its core offerings — OASyS SCADA — a product that helps energy firms mesh older IT assets with more advanced “smart grid” technologies. The company said it was disconnecting the usual data links between clients and affected portions of its internal networks. Meanwhile it is looking for virus or malware files. Telvent has cut data links between at-risk portions of its internal network and clients' systems as a precaution while it probes the breach. Police have been called in to investigate the attack. 

In a report The Register said -Dale Peterson, founder and chief of industrial control security specialist Digital Bond, spelled out the kinds of information present in the lifted documents. "Some project files contain the 'recipe' for the operations of a customer, describing calculations and frequencies at which systems run or when they should be turned on or off," He told press. "If you're going to do a sophisticated attack, you get the project file and study it and decide how you want to modify the pieces of the operation. Then you modify the project file and load it [onto a company's control system], and they're not running what they think they're running." 

While talking about US power grid, we would like to remind you that, earlier researcher have warned about several security holes in power which could even allow an attacker to shutdown the entire system. Soon after  this story made public, National Security Agency (NSA) suspected that hacktivist Anonymous may target the Entire U.S. Power Grid. What ever such massacre did not happen, and Anon said they are not interested to hit power industry. 

Chinese Hackers Behind Some Biggest Cyber Espionage:- 

Couple of months ago we have seen that Chinese hackers have broken into Indian Navy's Computer System & stolen sensitive data. Few months before this hack, Tokyo based computer security firm Trend Micro confirmed that Chinese hackers were responsible for biggest cyber-espionage in India, Japan & Tibet. Also the director of National Security Agency (NSA) General Keith Alexander confirmed that hackers from China was responsible for the serious attack on one of the leading IT security & cyber security company RSA. Also in 2011 China was responsible behind the attack on US Chamber of Commerce, Satellite System of U.S, Nortel Network & so on.  But few days ago National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Center of China (CNCERT/CC), China's primary computer security monitoring network claimed that China fallen victim of one of biggest cyber attacks originated from US, Japan & South Korea. We must have to say that this statement is truly irrelevant. Cyber crime investigator have found that China was directly responsible for the hack into Japan's Biggest Defense Contractor Mitsubishi, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) & Parliament of Japan. In case of South Korea  more than 13 Million of MapleStory players data has been stolen, there also hackers from China was responsible. 

The above phenomena are clearly indicating that hackers from China was directly linked and responsible for all those biggest cyber espionage. Still it is not clear that whether these cyber criminals are supported by the Govt. or not!!

Source: Voice Of Grey Hat