How Vulnerable Is Our Power Grid?

coreboarder writes "Recently it was divulged that the Brazilian power infrastructure was compromised by hackers. Then it was announced that it was apparently faulty equipment. A downplay to the global public or an honest clarification? Either way, it raises the question: how vulnerable are we, really? With winter and all its icy glory hurtling towards those of us in the northern hemisphere, how open are we to everything from terrorist threats to simple 'pay me or else' schemes?"

Comments

View from a US citizen living in Brazil.

[Mark_in_Brazil]

I've been living in São Paulo for over 9 years. I was without electrical power for a few hours last night.

The timeline on this is pretty entertaining. On the 7th, there were a bunch of stories saying the 2007 blackouts in Brazil were caused by crackers (the articles say "hackers"). On the 9th, there were strong denials all around, accompanied by stories saying that no, the 2007 blackouts were caused by "sooty insulators." On the 10th, Brazil suffered a blackout much worse than the ones in 2007. That looks to me like crackers saying "sooty insulators? We'll show you sooty insulators!"

By the way, power failures are normally abrupt, but the one last night was not. I usually go from lights to no lights almost instantaneously, but last night, the lights were flickering for a while. After a few minutes, I thought it was going to stabilize, because my compact fluorescents stayed on while my UPS beeped a lot to tell me it wasn't getting enough juice. The larger fluorescents in the kitchen couldn't start, but the compact fluorescents gave me some light in the living room.