WASHINGTON — A government video shows the potential destruction caused by hackers seizing control of a crucial part of the U.S. electrical grid: an industrial turbine spinning wildly out of control until it becomes a smoking hulk and power shuts down.
The video, produced for the Homeland Security Department and obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday, was marked "Official Use Only." It shows commands quietly triggered by simulated hackers having such a violent effect that the enormous turbine shudders as pieces fly apart and it belches black-and-white smoke.
The video was produced for top U.S. policymakers by the Idaho National Laboratory, which has studied the little- understood risks to the specialized electronic equipment that operates power, water and chemical plants.
"They've taken a theoretical attack and they've shown in a very demonstrable way the impact you can have using cyber means and cyber techniques against this type of infrastructure," said Amit Yoran, former U.S. cybersecurity chief for the Bush administration.
People are also reading…
Yoran is chief executive for NetWitness Corp., which sells sophisticated network-monitoring software.
"It's so graphic," Yoran said. "Talking about bits and bytes doesn't have the same impact as seeing something catch fire."
The electrical attack never actually happened. The recorded demonstration, called the "Aurora Generator Test," was conducted in March by government researchers investigating a dangerous vulnerability in computers at U.S. utility companies known as supervisory control and data-acquisition systems. The programming flaw was quietly fixed, and equipment makers urged utilities to take protective measures.
Industry experts cautioned that intruders would need specialized knowledge to carry out such attacks, including the ability to turn off warning systems.
"The video is not a realistic representation of how the power system would operate," said Stan Johnson, a manager at the North American Electric Reliability Corp., the Princeton, N.J.-based organization charged with overseeing the power grid.
A top Homeland Security Department official, Robert Jamison, said companies are working to limit such attacks.
