Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

DDoS Attack Halts Heating in Finland Amidst Winter (metropolitan.fi)

Posted by msmash on from the topsy-turvy-world dept.

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack halted heating distribution at least in two properties in the city of Lappeenranta, located in Eastern Finland. In both of these events, the attacks disabled the computers that were controlling heating in the buildings. An anonymous reader writes: Both of the buildings were managed by Valtia, the company which is in charge of managing the buildings overall operation and maintenance. According to Valtia CEO, Simo Ruonela, in both cases the systems that controlled the central heating and warm water circulation were disabled. In the city of Lappeenranta, there were at least two buildings whose systems were knocked down by the network attack. According to Rounela, the attack in Eastern Finland lasted from late October to Thursday -- the 3rd of November. The systems that were attacked tried to respond to the attack by rebooting the main control circuit. This was repeated over and over so that heating was never working.

17 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. Amidst Winter? by tsqr · · Score: 2, Funny

    I know it's cold in Finland this time of year, but the first day of winter is still a month and a half in the future.

    1. Re:Amidst Winter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The issue is that "winter" doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. I used to argue with my (Finnish) wife about this for a while, but Finns typically refer to something which translates as "thermal winter" (terminen talvi) which starts on the first day the average temperature for an area consistently drops below 0C

    2. Re:Amidst Winter? by gweeks · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The temperature in Helsinki is below freezing and isn't expected to get above freezing even during the daytime highs for at least a week. That's close enough to winter for me, no matter what the divide the year into four equal seasons says.

    3. Re:Amidst Winter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Its -6C(22F in retarded units) in Lappeenranta right now which sounds Wintery to me.

    4. Re:Amidst Winter? by EvilSS · · Score: 4, Funny

      I know it's cold in Finland this time of year, but the first day of winter is still a month and a half in the future.

      Yes, this is the most important part of the story. Who cares if some dipshit HVAC system failed due to a DDOS attack, disabling heat for buildings in sub-freezing temperatures. What we should really be discussing is this completely unacceptable disregard for when winter actually starts!

      --
      I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
    5. Re:Amidst Winter? by DatbeDank · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Seriously, there is absolutely NO good that comes from wiring up every little thing to the internet. What's the purpose behind connecting this to the open internet?

      Call me a Luddite and get these things off of the open internet. These idiots deserve what happens to them and those same idiots should be held accountable when someone dies from their ineptitude.

    6. Re:Amidst Winter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I believe you mean 22 in Freedom Units.

    7. Re:Amidst Winter? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      The issue is that "winter" doesn't mean the same thing to everyone.

      Indeed. I lived in China for a few years, and there winter starts on Dec 1st and ends on Mar 1st. That makes more sense, since it syncs up with both the calendar and the weather. The first 21 days of Dec are shorter and usually colder than the first 21 days of March.

    8. Re:Amidst Winter? by orgelspieler · · Score: 2

      My wife used to work for a company that controlled the thermostats of all of its satellite locations remotely. It's called micromanagement. Basically, if her patients were uncomfortable, the only thing she could do was apologize. But it saved the company hundreds of dollars per site each year, so that's totally worth it, right?

    9. Re:Amidst Winter? by Darinbob · · Score: 2

      Winter is still coming.

  2. Explain to me by The-Ixian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1. Why are these infrastructure computers reachable from the Internet?
    2. Why this system doesn't fail safe if the controller is taken down?

    Yet another cautionary tale of IoT woe, but also some seemingly bad design...

    --
    My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    1. Re:Explain to me by Darinbob · · Score: 2

      Jumalauta! It's damned cold in Finland right now. You really expect them to trudge through the snow just to flip some switches? That may be what they do in sunny Spain, but in Finland they are smart and stay inside!

  3. Moron designed systems fail by Lumpy · · Score: 2

    Sorry but if your heating system is 100% cloud based so that a DDOS attack or internet outage will stop heat control, then it was designed by the worlds biggest morons.

    Cloud based is great for toys, for anything important it's 100% shit.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re:Moron designed systems fail by sysrammer · · Score: 2

      Got it. The cool kids use the cloud, the rest of us are stuck using the internet.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
  4. Re:Moron designed systems fail, ... so by BoRegardless · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let a mechanical thermostat be the default control when the computer fails, regardless of why!

  5. Re:You anti-science denialist scum! by gtall · · Score: 2

    You don't really get global warming, do you?

  6. Re:The Internet Of Hacked Things by misxn · · Score: 2

    Not true. If you want to secure it with competence then you separate the two domains, not connect them.