November 5th, 2006
Power outage in Europe
A huge chunk of Europe was without power for two hours Saturday, including Paris. Evidently it was sparked by an "overload" in Northwest Germany. Remember the outage in the US in 2003? remember the calls for change? Better security, better control, etc. Pretty much nothing has been done since. Security wonks like to focus on the vulnerability of power grids. The SCADA networks are old fashioned and clunky and in need of overhaul. The most important thing is that they should not be connected to the Internet. For now, all we have to worry about is tree branches causing power surges. In the future it may be virus outbreaks.
Richard Stiennon is an industry consultant. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
