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Hackers Broke Into Brazil Power Grid Operator's Website Last Thursday

Posted by kdawson on from the wolf-no-really-this-time-i-mean-it dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A week ago, 60 Minutes had a story (we picked it up too) claiming that hackers had caused power outages in Brazil. While this assertion is now believed to be in error, hackers were inspired by the story actually to do what was claimed. Last Thursday, they broke into ONS, the operator of the grid (Google translation; Portuguese original). DarkReading has specific details on the SQL injection vulnerabilities the hackers probably used."

5 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. actually by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    the hackers invaded the _website_, the ONS network of computers that actually control the system is private and not connect to the internet.

  2. Re:full disclosure by mr+exploiter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And, two days after the blackout, the systems analyst Maycon Vitali, 23, revealed in the blog "Hack'n'roll" to a login page of the ONS revealed error in the validation data. The flaw could allow a hacker to send command to the database and find sensitive data from ONS.

    The failure was published in the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo on Monday (16).

    This is exactly why full disclosure is not good.

    How so? If two days after the vulnerabilty was exploited causing millions of dollars of damage they *still* don't fix it, then the public has the right to know how much the security of the systems sucks. It may be the only way to prevent this from happening again.

  3. Conspiracy theorys abound! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is ridiculous. You can easily hack into their corporate website, but there is no way hackers got into the Brazilian power grid management system, because there is no such automated system in the first place! The central agency controlling the grid Operador Nacional do Sistema (ONS) operates the center by calling their buddies on generating station over private phone lines. Unless you are a very good voice impersonator and know all the necessary protocols, you will not get very far. That's when lack of technology is a plus.

  4. Re:SQL injection? by oGMo · · Score: 5, Funny
    "' WHERE 1=1; UPDATE plant_employees SET status='FIRED'; ..."

    Or everybody's fired!

    --

    Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage

  5. Re:full disclosure by mitoyarzun · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here in Chile a guy reported the government about a serious bug on their outsourcing website (chilecompra.cl), they ignored him for months, and he made the bug public (you were able to know your competition's offer to the government just by changing a GET parameter).

    He was condemned by a court for breaking the law, more info here (spanish)

    What kind of action should one take in those cases? Has this happened before in other countries?