Joe Weiss on a New (or Newly Discovered) Risk to Substations

Control Systems security guru Joe Weiss recently wrote up his observations of a problem reported at a nuclear power facility wherein a transformer load tap charger (LTC) malfunctioned, wasn't detected in a timely manner, and could have caused trouble.

LTCs are used in ALL (Joe's emphasis) substation transformers and are designed to be remotely accessible.  But his bigger point, as he wrote me separately is that:

This incident can affect EVERY (again) electric substation - I found it because it affected a nuclear plant and an unusual event notice was issued - and [note] the word "cyber" was never used.

Key words here: "remotely accessible." Not something you want to see too often in an incident at or near a nuclear plant. You can read his full post at the URL for his Control Global blog provided below.

Also, Joe was recently quoted in an MIT Tech Review article on an attack on a water plant honey pot. You'll find a URL for that piece piece below as well.

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URLs

Control Global

http://community.controlglobal.com/content/system-still-broken-failure-cyber-sensitive-substation-device-affecting-nuclear-plant

MIT Tech Review

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/517786/chinese-hacking-team-caught-taking-over-decoy-water-plant/