Wednesday 25 May 2022

Russian Cyber Attack Incoming?

The capitalists are rather busy right now.  Yes, I'm on BTL notice to post on what Putin isn't doing, and why: but that must wait.  

By way of a pot-boiler, however, and very much on theme: before the Ukraine war started I solemnly advised folks around here (and elsewhere) to back up onto hard drives etc, any precious data they held in the Cloud - because the very first thing would be a massive Russian cyber attack.  Well, of course, that's one of many things that didn't happen. (yet ...)   

Or maybe that's wrong.  This, from Germany's Tagesspiegel:

Repeated cyberattacks cause concern about German wind industry’s IT security ...  A string of apparently targeted cyberattacks on German wind farms has led to worries that the country’s main future power source is not sufficiently protected. Turbine manufacturers Nordex and maintenance provider Deutsche Windtechnik both grappled with attacks on their IT infrastructure earlier this year, with the latter attack quickly being linked to possible Russian perpetrators, a cause the company so far neither has ruled out nor confirmed. Wind power industry association BWE said its member companies are experiencing “a new quality of cyber threats” since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. An earlier incident this year, shortly after the invasion began on 24 February, led to roughly 5,800 turbines by manufacturer Enercon being cut off remotely. While the Enercon case might have been “collateral damage” of an attack on a US satellite provider, this could not be said of the two later incidents.

Not a definitive sighting, clearly.  But a very strong message about vulnerability.

ND

24 comments:

Elby the Beserk said...

"Look at our faces", say the Turbine companies, " are we bovvered?"

Nope

https://www.netzerowatch.com/windfall-profits-for-offshore-wind/

"But 2021 was also interesting because of all the ups and downs in the wind sector: a wind drought lasting for much of the year, and the dramatic surge in market prices for electricity in the autumn. Ormonde is the first offshore unit to report financial results covering those events, so I was keen to see how it has performed.

The net effect is that the windfarm is sitting very pretty indeed. While its output was down around a third (!), its average selling price tripled, from £30 to £99/MWh(!), so its sales income doubled to £34 million. Of course, the surge in market prices only really applied to the final four months of the year, so those figures suggest that the windfarm is currently making over £200/MWh. Which is good going against the £30 they averaged in 2020.

And to make their year even better, on top of that, they have their Renewables Obligations subsidy. Of course, that is based on the number of megawatt hours they produce, so that revenue stream is down sharply, but overall they earned £75 million on their 350,000 MWh of output, so overall that’s £214/MWh. My estimate of Ormonde’s levelised cost is up slightly, at £154/MWh."

E-K said...

... or maybe they just ran out of wind.

We're doing plenty to sabotage ourselves, going green. Perhaps Putin's idea is never to interrupt an enemy when he's making a mistake.

Ditto the RMT ! Why are the Daily Mail and Sun blaming train drivers though ? We're not going on strike. Our union hasn't even balloted us.

Jan said...

@E-K That's mighty odd E-K. The beeb were reporting a rail strike in June and talking about contingency plans yesterday. Are they mis-representing the truth (again) and pushing their own agenda?

The difference with the 70s is no-one will be able to afford to go on strike this time!

(Sorry Nick to de-rail(!) the thread)

Anonymous said...

Isn't it just the people in the ticket booths and the people who tell you to stand behind the yellow line and watch for the closing doors going on strike?

Obviously they'll insist on closing everything down else it would be clear the system works just as well without most of them!

E-K said...

Jan - I certainly think we're being goaded by the tabloid press to do something silly. This would be Boris's Scargill moment - in time for 2024.

Can't speak for the RMT. It contains many members who are on low wages and poor conditions.

Anonymous said...

Canada promised the Ukes 20,000 rounds of NATO standard artillery ammunition, that's about a million kilos at 50 kilos a pop for M795.

There's a Canadian Globemaster at Rzeszow right now, reg 177705. 12 or 13 trips and that's done. I think that's the third trip I've seen.

Incidentally a US military passenger transport left Moldova for Zurich on May 22.

May 24 the leader of the Moldovan opposition (a pro-Russian and former PM) is arrested on corruption charges. Fancy that!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/24/moldovas-pro-russian-opposition-leader-detained-on-corruption-charges

Anonymous said...

IAF Lockheed C130J Hercules, MM62178, about to land at Rzeszow. From Pisa.

Anonymous said...

"back up onto hard drives etc, any precious data they held in the Cloud"

The 'Cloud' isn't a cloud. Its somebody elses server, that somebody else, has all the encryption keys, and access to all your passwords and data.

If you've put your data in the 'cloud' you're a fool.
If you've put your critical commercial data in the 'cloud', you're a moron.

By the way, if you are backing your 'cloud data'* onto local hard disks, where is the saving of putting your data in the 'cloud' in the first place?

Don Cox said...

"By the way, if you are backing your 'cloud data'* onto local hard disks, where is the saving of putting your data in the 'cloud' in the first place?"

It might save your data if the house or place of business burned down. But hard drives stored off the premises would do as well.

I don't have anything in a cloud.

Don



Elby the Beserk said...

E-K said...

Can't speak for the RMT. It contains many members who are on low wages and poor conditions.

1:37 pm
====================================================================

Up the workers, say the bosses...

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1576087/tube-strikes-london-tfl-boss-salary-travel-chaos-rmt

"Tube strike boss bringing travel chaos to millions earns a staggering £124,000 a year"

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4330569/rmt-rail-union-salary-soars-mick-cash/

"£150K STRIKE BOSS Rail union RMT’s boss Mick Cash’s salary has jumped to £150,000 a year — as commuters face strike chaos"

Some more equal than others, it seems... and are Hard Left unions obliged to have a boss called "Mick"?

Johnson completely bottled it with the unions during Covid; he'll bottle this, probably by spraying them with other peoples money.

Who will rid us of this troublesome PM?

Anonymous said...

I don't have much in t'cloud bar emails, I guess I should download those. Most of my stuff is on multiple hard disks which I dump my main boxes to at intervals.

Still, a cyber attack seems positively civilised compared with, say, a Switchblade or an anti-ship missile.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Strike_Missile#Joint_Strike_Missile

Just imagine if Russia had armed the IRA the way we are arming Ukraine.

Latest news from Donbass/Luhansk.

"La ciudad de Severodonetsk, en el sur de Ucrania, está en «cerco operativo», declaró este miércoles el teniente coronel de la milicia de la República Popular de Lugansk, Andréi Marochko."

That sounds awfully like "encirclement operation" to me.

Anonymous said...

PS - is it true that the US controls 30% of Syrian territory? That's far more than Russia has of Ukraine, and AFAIK Syria never threatened to join the Warsaw Pact.

Bill Quango MP said...

30% of territory ?
Where does that come from?

USA foreign deployment numbers as given by the state department give 900 US personnel in all Syria.



Anonymous said...

@anon 4.11pm

You clearly have no corporate experience of today’s IT infrastructure.

Morons ? LOL

Who hosts your data centre you tool ?

iops

Really, that’s a measure that you pay for you tool

Anonymous said...

immutable backups

is the latest buzzword in ‘cloud’ land.

Anonymous said...

Anon@10:47 "You clearly have no corporate experience of today’s IT infrastructure."

Supposing that is true, how does that refute my original assertion that the second you put any data in the cloud, you have given up control and security of your personal, or critical commercial data to another outfit?

Anon@10:47 "iops"

Vomiting up the latest IT buzzword isn't an argument.

Anonymous said...

Bill Quango MP: "USA foreign deployment numbers as given by the state department give 900 US personnel in all Syria."

And that IS an invasion illegal occupation, and the US is stealing Syrian oil. And conducted by the same neo-cons as kicked it off under Obama. But because its done by 'our'* side, you're ok with it.

*The UK is little more than an occupied country ourselves. With thirteen US military bases here since the end of the last war. Try an independent foreign policy with thirteen US military bases and see how far you get.

Nick Drew said...

Glad we managed to keep at least some of this on-topic ...

Dilbert has pitched in this morning: https://dilbert.com/strip/2022-05-26

E-K said...

Sorry, Sir. *shuffles exercise books into neat pile on desk at back of class*

Of cyber attacks. I'm sure all sorts of nasties are on their way but they're unnecessary. Food shortages are already coming. More refugee crises from the third world to the EU. Russia doesn't have to do anything in the way of attack - all it has to do is NOT do what it was doing before to right royally stuff any Covid bounce back and any hope of a return of the fundamentals that gave us our standard of living.

Hopefully Xi (hopefully ?) is already talking to the successor to Putin and already advising a Chinese approach to the future rather than a nuclear tantrum.

The RMT - for example - have failed to see that the economic fundamentals have changed in the West because of Russia and on and on this futile and draining industrial strife will go. Back to the 70s ??? As recent as that ?

This is what Putin's invasion has done to us even if his troops are being decimated. He flipped. It was a "F*** you !" to America and her allies.

Anonymous said...

The fog of war is pretty impenetrable atm - on one side, claims that Ukr are pulling back artillery and that D-place is about to fall, on the other "400 Russians killed in failed river crossing (again).

OTOH, a lot of 3-follower Twitter accounts are calling for WW3 to begin.

That's the worrying thing. Lots of chat elsewhere about Ghost Of Kiev, Snake Island heroes, useless Russians, etc - I've even got a hint of that here sometimes. But if/when Russia starts grinding forward, a lot of people's illusions will be shattered and they'll start calling for ACTION THIS DAY, SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.

And I've not got my potassium iodate tablets yet!

Nick Drew said...

Anon @ 3:39 - if you've got more time on your hands than you know what to do with, you can spool back this blog and find we've always said: if Putin wants to seize & hold a small strip of Ukraine, who's to stop him "grinding forward"?

Which is where I am still. BUT: this latest offensive has been telegraphed for weeks in the most obvious ways imaginable; his forces are degraded & demoralised (even if some of them have been learning, the hard way, a few things that might be useful to them); and the opposition, if weary, is constantly being replenished if not actually upgraded; supplied with excellent intelligence; has proven itself to be extremely capable; and has also been learning the while.

Attacking in slow motion like this is gonna be seriously costly. And, it's at the expense of consolidating on Kherson, which is strategically as important for Russia as retaining the Azov coastline.

My suggested leading strategic indicator is still the appearance (or not) of Chinese drones in theatre. Unilateral cessation of gas supplies to Germany would be another. Otherwise, he's pouring good money after bad for modest short-term gain (a bit of land plus his own survival) and immense long-term peril. But again: who's to stop him?

Anonymous said...

iops is not a buzzword.

It is a measure of compute power

It allows elasticity of services.
For example if demand spikes you can automatically spin up servers and or increase performance.
iops cost money, increasing them cost more.

Cloud compute such as Azure and AWS allows this.
Again you clearly have no concept of today’s IT infrastructure. You is the fool/moron.

Anonymous said...

PS - Rzeszow is hosting a Brit tanker again and one of these. Radar technology has advanced a lot that the Israelis can make the entire aircraft an antenna. Conformal.

https://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2021/09/the-unrivalled-versatility-of-the-beechcraft-king-air/

Anonymous said...

bot@5.37 "iops is not a buzzword."

So you found google. Well done.

"Again you clearly have no concept of today’s IT infrastructure."

Again, that might be true. But it's irrevelant.

Keep repeating your favourite phrase, and continue to avoid the inherent insecurity of the 'cloud' model.