Yesterday in Brazil, a power outage occurred at the Itaipu Binacional dam. The dam, a hydroelectric power source for a major portion of Brazil’s population, was forcibly shut down. Marcio Zimmerman, a Brazilian energy official, stated that the outage may have been due to weather conditions. A full article on the outage may be found here, at Bloomberg news.
This outage would be in stark contrast to power outages in 2005 and 2007, which may have been the work of hackers, as recently reported on 60 Minutes. The 60 Minutes piece highlights few specifics, but makes note of an Obama speech hinting at US intelligence services’ observations related to hacking in Brazil. Although the most recent Brazil outage is only a reminder, and not an actual instance of hacking, our own government’s delay in providing proper cybersecurity resources leaves critical infrastructure vulnerable.
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