The Diabolical Ukrainian Hack That Put The U.S. Grid On High Alert

"Eastern Europe was blanketed in a heat wave last summer. In Kiev, Ukraine, a state of desperate resignation had set in as fighting intensified between pro-Russia rebels and Ukrainian forces to the east. Separatists closed highways and attacked ports. Meanwhile, a silent incursion had started to worm its way into the email accounts of employees at media outlets, national railroads and power distributors in the western half of the country.

The digital-era Trojan horse looked like a call to arms from the nation's embattled capital. The subject line read simply, "Mobilization."

As Ukraine's civil war raged, a few mouse clicks at three local power companies set in motion the covert intrusion. It was the first successful attempt at planting a bug, then disabling an electric grid serving hundreds of thousands of people."

Blake Sobczak and Peter Behr report for EnergyWire July 18, 2016.