This means that we have many small units – such as wind and solar plants but also smart meters – which are connected in a digital way,” said Swantje Westpfahl, director at Germany’s Institute for Security and Safety. The European power companies, as well as half a dozen independent tech security experts, stressed that the digitalized and interconnected technology of the thousands of renewable assets and energy grids springing up across Europe presented major – and growing – vulnerabilities to infiltration. The Russian foreign ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the views of the power companies or the Ukrainian SBU’s assertions. Russian officials have said that the West repeatedly blames Moscow for cyberattacks without providing evidence and that the United States as well as its allies carry out offensive cyber operations against it. It said Russia had tried to destroy digital networks and cause power cuts, and that missile attacks on facilities were often accompanied by cyberattacks. Ukraine’s SBU security service told Reuters that Russia launched more than 10 cyberattacks a day, on average, with the Ukrainian energy sector a priority target. Gimnes Are said he feared a nation state could work with hacker groups to infect a network with malicious software – though like the other executives declined to divulge details on specific attacks or threats, citing corporate confidentiality. But we have been able to observe and learn from it,” said Torstein Gimnes Are, cybersecurity chief at Hydro, an aluminium producer as well as Norway’s fourth-largest power generator. “The cyber campaigns that Russia has been running against Ukraine have been very targeted at Ukraine. They’re nervously monitoring a hybrid war where physical energy infrastructure has already been targeted, from the Nord Stream gas pipelines to the Kakhovka dam. The executives all said the sophistication of Russian cyberattacks against Ukraine had provided a wake-up call to how vulnerable digitalized and interconnected power systems could be to attackers. “We established last year, after the start of the Ukraine war, that the risk of cyber sabotage has increased,” said Michael Ebner, information security chief at German utility EnBW, which is expanding its 200-strong cyber security team to protect operations ranging from wind and solar to grids. Hydro is among several large power producers shoring up their cyberdefences due in significant part to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which they say has ramped up the threat of hacker attacks on their operations, according to Reuters interviews with a dozen executives from seven of Europe’s biggest players. But what I can say is that we have found holes in our system,” she told Reuters at Hydro’s Oslo HQ, declining to detail the nature of the vulnerabilities for security reasons. “I am not sure I want to comment on how often we find holes in our system. She joined Norway’s Hydro as an “ethical hacker” last April, bringing years of experience in military cyberdefence to bear at a time of war in Europe and chaos in energy markets. Henriette Borgund knows attackers can find weaknesses in the defences of a big renewables power company – she’s found them herself. It’s the stuff of nightmares for European power chiefs. They hack into vulnerable wind and solar power systems. OSLO/LONDON/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Saboteurs target a nation leading the world in clean energy. By Nora Buli, Nina Chestney and Christoph Steitz
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