Chinese hackers responsible for Florida blackout?

Did China cause Florida's recent massive blackout? A National Journal story by Shane Harris makes the claim that Chinese hackers may have been behind "two recent widespread blackouts in Florida and the Northeast."

I wrote a story back in February about the vulnerability of the grid to hackers. But cyber-terrorism wasn't the reason FP&L gave for the blackout. Florida Power & Light blamed the blackout on human error.

"The grid has vulnerabilities that are both blessings and curses," Eric Byres said in a February interview. Byres is the chief technology officer for Byres Security, a Canadian firm that focuses on cyber-security for critical infrastructure. "The grid is the most complicated machine that man has ever made."

The power network has two basic problems, he said. It's highly interconnected, so power can move throughout the system and customers aren't solely dependent on one power plant. But that also means that an isolated problem can quickly amplify.

"The other problem with the grid is that it's old. It uses technology built largely 25 to 30 years ago," Byres said.

Here's an interesting post from a another blog on a recent Congressional hearing on grid security.

-Asjylyn Loder, Times Staff Writer