Cyber attack against UK power grid middleman Elexon sparks in-house IT recovery efforts

An important middleman in the UK's electrical power grid has suffered a cyber attack, though the lights are still on across good old Blighty. Elexon, which reconciles electricity supply to the National Grid and issues bills for undersupply or oversupply, was struck by what appears to be a partially contained ransomware attack …

[amanfromMars 1]

The weakest link ..... and a reliable constant source of inestimable bounty

Do you think the computer equipment that controls the navy's nuclear submarines, receive e-Mail? ..... Anonymous Coward/Montgomery Scott wannabe

Maybe not, AC, but the PEBKAC issuing instructions and/or following orders controlling equipment on a navy's nuclear submarines certainly do ....... and can be surprisingly easily nobbled and hobbled nowadays, which must be quite a worry to more than just a connected few ?

How do you stop folk thinking for themselves whenever they receive new information which energises their intelligence services releasing the realisation they are being comprehensively played for a useful fool and idiot's tool? Do you think such possible and/or desirable?

[amanfromMars 1]

From US with LOVE ...... for Captivating Capture by Mother Russia Red Teamsters

Do you have Alternate Virtualised AI Realities Processing Future Information for Universal TeleVisualised Audio Visual Presentations ‽ . ....... and of COSMIC Construction Cossack Style

Is there a Vlad in the House Putting In Input to Output for an Imperial Soviet State of Bodies with Advanced IntelAIgent Minders ...... AIMentors and Monitors?

And that question is hereby, here now presented for the only true simple answers when the question escapes you ‽ ..... Yes, No, Maybe Later for a Never Ever Before Ending to Kick Start urVirtual AIMachinery into Global Social Significance, are all Correct and Great Ideas to Also Personalise and Populate in All Manners of Matters of One's Own Choosing.

And yes, that does wander into the Spooky Kremlin Russian Orthodox Church Services Territories of the Yet to be Imagined and Directed, Produced and Enacted? One imagines them all quite busy there these days. ....... but the few words here all but universally guarantees the information herein shared and safely certainly delivered, and to as many intended addressees as would be able to benefit from a welcoming enlightened foreknowledge too ..... which is the Real Not Totally Unexpected Bonus when Top Secrets are Proving Overwhelmingly Expensive and Impossibly Difficult to Maintain and Retain and Restrain. They be an Obstructive Destructive Liability Harbouring the Seeds and Feeds and Needs of One's Own Ascension into an Attendant Ascendancy with Keys to Unlock and Free the Heavenly Stores Within for Future Programs and Protected by the Almightiest of Doors. ...... One's own Disbelief of a Fact Proving Itself to be True ....... and Able to Communicate with You Too?

How about them jewels now that diamond sparklers have lost their attractive lustre ? Future Sensitive Information Sales are one of those Virtual AIDerivative Ventures which Hedge Funds and Merchant Banks are just made for and may even tell you to stay well away from if of a highly nervous disposition.:-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: From US with LOVE ...... for Captivating Capture by Mother Russia Red Teamsters

four 0F four:

- a keyboard and its peripherals - some computer, monitor, etc;

- some room to put it all in;

- stock to feed the OBKAC

- revive the h/out environs.

so few to do, as one can see. so much to, at least, expect (-:

vvork in present conditions will bring no good neither to the 0utbox, nor to the 0bservers.

with my respect,

-anon

[billat29]

Re: From US with LOVE ...... for Captivating Capture by Mother Russia Red Teamsters

That's more the style we expect.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: From US with LOVE ...... for Captivating Capture by Mother Russia Red Teamsters

That's more the style we expect. ..... billat29

Is that you saying the post is incomprehensible and confusing you, billat29? Does it need to be further simplified with more sensitive information added to reveal more of the sterling secrets hiding in the shadowy shade of star systems collapsing/imploding/exploding?

:-) Do bots play global stud poker with just humans/themselves ?

[Trigun]

Ransomware - check your backup size daily

People have mentioned about ransomware infecting backups.

One of the things we do for our customers is a set of daily checks (something I expect all you sysadmins out there do...) the results of which we record in a spreadsheet. This includes checking the backups and recording the size amongst other things. If we see anything unusual (such as a size increase is the incremental which bucks the normal trend) we start looking into it and if we have a suspicion something is going on we take a separate copy of the older backups which are inaccessible to domain accounts - including domain admins (preferably subsequently made offline).

It's not absolutely infallible, but it's one of our ways for trying to catch this kind of thing.

Also, we also setup SRP whitelists, file screening, decent AV, etc. where the costomer will let us. Again, not infallible, but can stop a lot of things if implemente correctly.

And, of course, end user awareness and training (a constant battle).

[Unoriginal Handle]

If they are going to pay the ransom, why not pay in electricity, rather than directly in bitcoin ? After all, they know where the electricity is and how to get hold of it :)

Mine's the coat with the multimeter in the pocket.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can always hold a fluorescent tube at an appropriate angle somewhere inside the field around the lines... Technically this is of course, theft and highly dangerous if you don't know what you are doing.

[Marc 13]

I've worked in large, multinational and small even micro businesses over the last 10 years.

I am always surprised just how low the IT comprehension is within the non IT types... They can use a smart phone to download an play FB or Twitter yet cannot comprehend saving a doc to OneDrive/DropBox etc instead of the desktop ffs. They cannot click "Save as" when editing an email attached doc and wonder why their edits aren't saved.

This ISN'T in depth IT knowledge, its should be the starting point of the job interview for any job in the business.

In the case of opening crappy emails... send them two interview invites, one crap and one real... if they open the crap one, decline them!

M