GridRussian govt. behind attack on Ukraine power grid: U.S. officials

Obama officials said that Russian hackers were behind a December 2015 cyberattack on Ukraine’s power grid. The attack caused power outages and blackouts in 103 cities and towns across Ukraine.

Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, deputy Energy Secretary, made the comments to a gathering of electric power grid industry executives.

International Business Times reports that Sherwood-Randall’s comments are not in line with the view of U.S. intelligence and security agencies, which say that the evidence for Russia’s involvement in the attack is not air-tight, and that the U.S. government is not yet prepared to attribute the cyberattack to the Russian government.

IBTnotes that other officials who spoke at the same event also did not go as far as Sherwood-Randall’s assessment.

A spokeswoman for Sherwood-Randall told CNN she could not provide details of the presentation or discuss the sensitive information provided.

U.S. intelligence and national security officials have monitored the investigation of the Ukrainian grid attack – and the FBI offered technical assistance — because the attack is the first confirmed cyber-warfare attack affecting civilians. Experts note that the U.S. power grid and other critical infrastructure facilities have many of the same vulnerabilities exploited by the hackers in the Ukraine attack.

The briefing for electric power grid industry executives, held last Thursday, aimed to provide the executives with the findings of the U.S. team which went to Ukraine to investigate the grid attack. The team included experts from the U.S. departments of Energy, State, Homeland Security, and the FBI. They found conclusive evidence that a cyberattack caused the blackout.

IBTreports that the hackers attacked six different power companies at the same time. Destructive malware disabled computers and wiped out sensitive control systems for parts of the Ukraine power grid, making it more difficult for technicians to restore power.

Ukrainian officials, who publicly blamed Russia for the attack, said that the attack was carried out by a version of the malware known as BlackEnergy, which has origins in Russia.

U.S. government and private sector experts, however, say it was not BlackEnergy that caused the damage. They point instead to other, more destructive malicious software.