Report: Cyber Attacks Caused Power Outages in Brazil

* By Kevin Poulsen Email Author
* November 7, 2009 |
* 12:55 am |
* Categories: Cybarmageddon!
*

60Electrical blackouts impacting millions of people in Brazil in 2005 and 2007 were caused by hackers targeting control systems, according to the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes.

(Update: Brazilian Blackout Traced to Sooty Insulators, Not Hackers)

In a show set to air Sunday night, CBS blames a two-day outage in Espirito Santo in 2007 on a hack attack. The blackout affected three million people. Another, smaller blackout north of Rio de Janeiro in January 2005 was also triggered by computer intruders, the network claims.

Reports that hacker-extortionists triggered at least one blackout outside the U.S. first surfaced last year, based on comments made by the CIA’s chief cybersecurity officer, Tom Donahue, who declined to identify any country or the specifics of the alleged attacks. In an interview with Threat Level’s Kim Zetter last month, former cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke publicly named Brazil as a hack attack blackout victim for the first time, but didn’t go into details.

60 Minutes hasn’t distinguished itself with its cyber reporting in the past: the show’s alarmist piece on the Conficker botnet showed a picture of a gang of ruthless Russian hackers that turned out to be a bunch of school kids from Finland, and the show’s recent report on internet piracy was rank with unchecked Hollywood talking points. Earlier reports from other media sources about hacker-triggered blackouts within the U.S. proved false.

But it seems unlikely that CBS would pin itself to a claim like this — naming specific, and real blackouts — without solid investigative sourcing beyond the usual suspects in the U.S. intelligence community and cyber security vendors. If they were wrong, their claims would be quickly disputed from within Brazil.

So Threat Level will be tuning in Sunday, and beginning Monday may have to be a little less snarky in its Cybarmageddon coverage. We might even have to rethink those Finnish kids.

Update 11-08-09 1:45 pm: The Brazilian government and the local energy company Furnas are denying the CBS News claim, according to today’s edition of the Brazilian newspaper Folha. Raphael Mandarino Junior, director of the Homeland Security Information and Communication of the Institutional Security Cabinet of the Presidency, also told the paper he’s investigated the claims and found no evidence of hacker attacks.

Update 11-08-09 11:55 pm: The show has aired, and we now know that 60 Minutes’ extraordinary hacker blackout claim comes from “half-a-dozen” sources in the military, intelligence and security communities — not one of which is named. That doesn’t mean the story is false, but the show did lead with former Bush intel chief Mike McConnell. And, really, if you’re sourcing McConnell, you might as well just make it up yourself.

There was no mention in the broadcast that the power company and the Brazilian government dispute the claim.

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Yahoo! Buzz

afinal não há apagão, apenas apagao de autoridade de Justiça, Sr. Ministro Genro!

Ministro da Justiça T.Genro ( QUE DEVERIA ESTAR INVESTIGANDO DE VERDADE se foi atentado ou ação criminosa de grupos da Narcolandia ou hackers , e de que nacionalidade, pois foi no dia da visita do PRIMEIRO-MINISTRO DE ISRAEL AO BRASIL...)tenta colocar 'panos quentes' sobre blecaute
Ministro considera um exagero classificar o episódio como "o apagão do governo Lula"


Para Tarso Genro, ministro da Justiça, o apagão que atingiu, na noite desta terça-feira, 18 Estados do Brasil foi “um micro-problema, perto das grandes questões que já foram solucionadas pelo governo no país”. Em uma tentativa de tentar minimizar a repercussão negativa, Genro lembrou que o governo já enfrentou situações bem piores.

Em entrevista ao repórter José Maria Trindade, o deputado José Aníbal, salientou que os investimentos brasileiros em infraestrutura precisam ser melhor fiscalizados. Aníbal criticou ainda a declaração de Tarso Genro e alegou que o ministro está longe da realidade brasileira.

Já o senador Delcídio Amaral afirma que o Brasil não podem ficar à mercê de apagões. O integrante da Comissão de Energia da Câmara, o deputado José Carlos Aleluia, também criticou a operação do sistema energético brasileiro.

O deputado Vanderlei Macris, do PSDB, é um dos parlamentares que quer esclarecimentos do ministro de Minas e Energia no Congresso Nacional. O parlamentar democrata destaca que será criada uma comissão externa para acompanhar o caso.

A Comissão de Fiscalização e Controle da Câmara aprovou o pedido para que o ministro Edison Lobão preste esclarecimentos à Casa. Devido a um acordo, o requerimento proposto pelo deputado Vanderlei Macris foi convertido a um convite. De acordo com a base aliada, o ministro de Minas e Energia se comprometeu a comparecer ao Congresso, mesmo não sendo obrigado. A oposição ainda protocola uma série de pedidos para que Lobão explique o blecaute que deixou 18 estados brasileiros às escuras na noite de terça-feira.
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Brazil's president denied Wednesday that underinvestment was to blame for the worst power outage in a decade, which left a huge swath of the country in the dark for more than five hours and raised doubts about the reliability of its energy infrastructure.

The blackout Tuesday night left tens of millions of people without electricity across most of the country's wealthy southeastern region.

Energy officials said it was likely caused when a storm downed three transmission lines carrying power from a hydroelectric dam on Brazil's border with Paraguay.

"We didn't have a failure in the generation of energy, we had a problem in the transmission line," President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told reporters in Brasilia.



An Energy Ministry official said the outage was triggered because the system was not equipped to cope with so many downed lines at once.



Power Outage in Brazil and Paraguay
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11 Nov 2009 ... Brazil blackouts hit up to 60M, spur Olympic fears (AP): "Brazil emerged Wednesday from a widespread power outage that plunged as many as 60 ...
gosouthamerica.about.com/.../power-outage-in-brazil-and-paraguay.htm - 20 horas
Power Outage in Brazil and Paraguay
Wednesday November 11, 2009
Itapu dam, Paraguay
Brazil blackouts hit up to 60M, spur Olympic fears (AP): "Brazil emerged Wednesday from a widespread power outage that plunged as many as 60 million people into darkness for hours, prompting security fears and concern from residents about another black eye for a country hosting the 2016 Olympic Games."


Paraguay, who shares the power from the Itaipu dam, the world's second biggest hydroelectric producer, also lost country-wide power, but for a much shorter time.