American utility providers are under constant assaults from hackers, a new Congressional report reveals, with one electricity firm reporting 10,000 attempted cyber attacks in one month.
Congressmen Edward Markey and Henry Waxman surveyed over 100 utility firms across the US, with results published in the Electric Grid Vulnerability report suggesting they're under constant threat from computer hackers.
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More than a dozen utility providers reported "daily", "constant", or "frequent" attempts at infiltration by computer hackers, with cyber attack methods ranging from phishing to malware infections.
One organisation reported that it was the target of 10,000 cyber attacks in a month, while another power provider revealed it's under a "constant state of 'attack' from malware and entities seeking to gain access to internal systems". Another respondent told Markey and Waxman they're "under constant cyber attack from cyber criminals including malware and the general threat from the Internet".
According to the research, "no utility reported damage to any of its cyber-assets", but Markey and Waxman indicate there's no single unified method for reporting cyber attacks to the authorities.
"Most respondents indicated that they follow standard requirements for reporting attacks to state and federal authorities, did not describe the circumstances under which these requirements would be triggered, but largely indicated that the incidents they experienced did not rise to reportable levels," said the report, adding "the cyber threat continues to grow."
Infrastructure and industry is increasingly becoming a target for cyber criminals, as former US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told a New York audience in October last year.
"An aggressor nation or extremist group could use these kinds of cyber tools to gain control of critical switches," he said.
"They could derail passenger trains, or even more dangerous, derail trains loaded with lethal chemicals. They could contaminate the water supply in major cities, or shut down the power grid across large parts of the country."
In his administration's most recent budget, President Barack Obama revealed plans to increase cyber security spending by 20 per cent.
