"theoretically Possible" To Cripple India's Power Grids

[ChampakDas]

It is possible for an adversary or a group of hackers to cripple India's power grids through a cyber-attack, although this is an unlikely reason for the recent power outages that crippled much of north, east and north-eastern India.

Since the first power trip up on Monday, there have been discussions within the security establishment about the possibility of entities trying to carry out a sophisticated [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/cyber-attack"]cyber-attack[/url] to cripple the grids.

Officials who carried out an audit of critical information infrastructure admit it is "theoretically possible" to cripple India's power grids through a cyber-attack.

Despite such a possibility, the shutdown did not seem to have led to a crisis management procedure that aimed at ruling out or confirming a cyber-attack.

"Given the fact that our grids are vulnerable to a cyber-attack, those responsible for managing grids should have a proactive policy to rule out cyber-attack as part of their crisis management procedures," a senior official said. "But none of it was visible," he added.

Sources aware of contacts among power ministry, power grid authorities and those in both CERT-IN ( [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Computer-Emergency-Response-Team-India"]Computer Emergency Response Team-India[/url]) and [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/NTRO"]NTRO[/url] (National Technical Research Organisation) say there was no proactive effort by those responsible for power grids.

[BobbyFischer]

India lo andar laanthar lu koni pettukunte saripoddi vaay safe side ga...