Chinese Researcher Says US Power Grid Is Vulnerable, Strategist Overreacts

An anonymous reader writes with a story about Wang Jianwei, a grad student in China who recently released a paper detailing a vulnerability in the US power grid. Despite the paper being rather typical for security research, its origin set off alarm bells for military strategist Larry M. Wortzel, who testified before Congress that the student was a threat, despite the fact that the published attack wasn't really feasible. Quoting: "'We usually say "attack" so you can see what would happen,' [Wang] said. 'My emphasis is on how you can protect this. My goal is to find a solution to make the network safer and better protected.' And independent American scientists who read his paper said it was true: Mr. Wang's work was a conventional technical exercise that in no way could be used to take down a power grid. The difference between Mr. Wang's explanation and Mr. Wortzel’s conclusion is of more than academic interest. It shows that in an atmosphere already charged with hostility between the United States and China over cybersecurity issues, including large-scale attacks on computer networks, even a misunderstanding has the potential to escalate tension and set off an overreaction. 'Already people are interpreting this as demonstrating some kind of interest that China would have in disrupting the US power grid,' said Nart Villeneuve, a researcher with the SecDev Group, an Ottawa-based cybersecurity research and consulting group."

Comments

Still doesn't make it a non-threat.

[sethstorm]

It doesn't change that the particular individual(Wang) and his home country(China) are threats.

And independent American scientists who read his paper said it was true: Mr. Wang's work was a conventional technical exercise that in no way could be used to take down a power grid

That presumes none of them were on China's side or favored China in any way.

Re:Scapegoating abounds and we all suffer

[Nadaka]

Sorry, I don't buy that christian original sin bullshit.

Re:typical military response

[Bigjeff5]

I think a better example would be Global Warming alarmists who have been cherry-picking studies for the last couple decades or so. Not many people take the ID guys seriously, but an alarming number take the GW guys seriously even though the vast majority of studies indicate the current climate trends are nothing out of the ordinary. Even when the cherry-picked studies are debunked they somehow continue to be used as evidence, because the people using them have bought a bigger megaphone than anybody else.