Russia threatens power grids if Biden moves in Ukraine *Updated

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A "sophisticated, targeted cyberattack" could knock out large portions of the U.S. power grid for 9 to 18 months, cybersecurity consultant Joe Weiss told Utility Dive. Such an attack would be "irrecoverable," he said.

Could terrorists really black out the power grid ...

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Homeland Security warns that Russia could launch cyberattack against US

WASHINGTON – A new Department of Homeland Security bulletin warns that Russia could launch a cyberattack against U.S. targets on American soil if it believes Washington’s response to its potential invasion of Ukraine threatens its long-term national security.

DHS blasted out the memo Sunday to U.S. critical infrastructure operators and state and local governments around the country, warning that “Russia maintains a range of offensive cyber tools that it could employ against U.S. networks” that make everything from planes to hospitals to dams and bridges operate.

Separately, a well-respected private cybersecurity firm leader warns that while “cyber espionage is already a regular facet of global activity, as the situation deteriorates, we are likely to see more aggressive information operations and disruptive cyberattacks within and outside of Ukraine.”

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“The crisis in Ukraine has already proven to be a catalyst for additional aggressive cyber activity that will likely increase as the situation deteriorates,” wrote John Hultquist, vice president of threat intelligence for Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm that provides services to private enterprises, governments and law enforcement agencies worldwide.

“At Mandiant, we have been anticipating this activity, and we are concerned that, unlike the recent defacements and destructive attacks, future activity will not be restricted to Ukrainian targets or the public sector," Hultquist wrote in his Jan. 20 online report.

Paul Rosenzweig, a former senior Homeland Security official, said the DHS Intelligence and Analysis bulletin underscores how even U.S. efforts to help avert a potential military conflict thousands of miles away has the potential to cause real harm to Americans here at home.

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The nation’s leading expert on protecting the electric grid from attack urges governors to take the lead because the Biden administration won’t.

In a new alert, Peter Vincent Pry, the executive director of the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security, said concerns are growing that Russia, North Korea, and Iran are inching closer to testing an electromagnetic attack on the U.S. grid, or parts of it.

He noted the current crisis in Ukraine could spark a Russian attack, and he cited state media making the threat in the past.

“In April 2021, during the previous big crisis between Russia versus the U.S. and NATO over Ukraine, Moscow’s state-run TV broadcast to the world that: ‘War is inevitable…it will be a Cyber War,’” Pry said in his note, shown below.

He said Florida has been threatened “to deter the U.S. from helping Ukraine.”

And he said just last month, a member of the Russian Duma (the country's Congress) “proposed warning Washington that Moscow is serious about nuclear war over Ukraine — by launching a hypersonic warhead to detonate on or over the Nevada nuclear test area. A nuclear or non-nuclear EMP demonstration could blackout Nevada or the entire Western Grid.”

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Former President Donald Trump took some steps to protect grids around the country, but they remain open to either an attack or a natural hit from a solar flare.

With Washington stalled, he suggested governors take the lead and even drafted a model executive order they could use.

“The White House and Congress have tried to protect the nation’s electric grids and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures through executive orders and legislation. But federal departments, agencies, and regulatory bodies, through incompetence or corruption or both, have all failed to make our nation safe from EMP and Cyber Warfare,” he said.

In a recent report on the impact of a power grid outage, Pry warned that up to 90% of the U.S. population could die during a year without power.

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