Brazil’s latest power outage. Surely this is a coincidence, right?
Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 November 2009 03:39 Written by Jeffreycarr Wednesday, 11 November 2009 03:39
On Sunday, November 8th, 60 Minutes aired its episode identifying a hacker attack as the cause of a 2007 power outage in Brazil.
On Monday, November 9th, Brazilian authorities denied that it was hackers, claiming instead “sooty insulators“.
On Tuesday, November 10th, a massive power outage impacts an estimated 90 million people. The dam operator says it wasn’t them; that the failure must have been at one or more points in the transmission system. Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA refuses to comment on the cause.
Now if a hacker named “Karma” would just claim credit for the attack…..
[...] Jeff Carr also marvels at the timing. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Sao Paulo On The BrinkPower Outage Darkens [...]
Actually the report from the electric company and regulators was published long before Nov 9th or the CBS report. It’s been on public record and even resulted in fines.
That leaves only unnamed hackers, unnamed government officials, unnamed methods, and unnamed motives for hackers compromising the network. That’s not to say it’s impossible but there’s been no verifiable evidence presented indicating that a cyber attack is related to the originally reported event. In contrast, you have local media, government regulators, the power company, and a reasonably plausible explanation for soot.