As nation-state hacking becomes 'more in your face,' are supply chains secure?

Former US Air Force cyber officer Sarah Cleveland worries about the threat of a major supply-chain attack from China or another adversarial nation. So she installed solar panels on her house: "Because what if the electric grid goes down?"  The home solar system was Cleveland's personal answer to the question of where to begin …

[mark l 2]

So she installed solar panels on her house: "Because what if the electric grid goes down?"

Well unless your using your solar panels to charge a battery backup, then if your grid goes down then by design so does the output from your solar panels, as the grid doesn't want you feeding electricity back into it if there is a problem that requires engineers working on cables which are not supposed to be live.

[Rattus]

That's why you install an isolation contactor and an inverter that has phase synchronisation, and NOT the cheapest thing going.

Also ensure that your inverter is rated for continuous operation at full load (without the need for refrigerated cooling)

But I agree the battery packs are important too (power cuts happen when it is dark as often as when it is light - except here in the UK when it is dark more than 50% of the time)

Oh and FFS please don't ever let infrastructure tech (even for domestic use) connect to the internet in any way shape of form.

Mine's the house with the lights still on.

/Rattus

[S_U_Cleveland]

All Secure (as possible)

Mark

Battery backup installed, EMP hardened, data dongle disconnected and a grid disconnect switch installed. All purchased from a Veteran Owned Texas based company -- in which the CEO directly answers calls and emails. However, still wishing there was a home version of ExtraHop for my home enterprise IoT.

Kind Regards

Sarah

[HuBo]

Let's bomb the Houthis?

Yeah, makes me wonder about the extent to which DARPA's ARPANET was developed with security in mind, or not (beyond functionality as a comms network), and how that philosophy might have then permeated over into Internet to bring us to a situation where security is still not the number one consideration in networking (by far), as seen for example by the choice of hardware with foreign-operated backdoors (where even Cleveland's solar panels have 'em).

Then again, some of the 'more in your face' nation-state hacking performed through such equipment shouldn't make us forget to vet our 'Signal' mailing lists to ensure that they don't include some random journalistic folks who shouldn't be made aware of our detailed plans for bombing the Houthis, as we are discussing them, hours before the secretive action actually takes place, irrespective of whether Pete Hegseth and JD Vance are also on those mailing lists, imho.

EDIT: as described also by Iain here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Let's bomb the Houthis?

So, that's simultaneous cyberattacks, unwittingly from within and craftily in-your-face from without ... Manchurian Orange sedition and submission ... Wow! That's a sure recipe for disaster, catastrophic disaster ... a deranged Chef's Hells Kitchen cooking directions for an "all your networks are belongs to us" pudding of imminent doom ...

Shoot! We are so cyberfucked by the self-impotent Orange dildo in Cheese and his vibrating chihuahuas!

[Andrew Scott]

Re: Let's bomb the Houthis?

yes even a secure app like signal is not help if you're brain dead.

[ecofeco]

What mandates?

I predict there will much fodder for El Reg for years to come.

[nijam]

... So she installed solar panels on her house

Because all the electronics and control systems are sourced in China? Well, aren't they?

[S_U_Cleveland]

nijam,

Being aware of where your parts are sourced, evaluating the risk and making an informed decision to accept that risk (or not) is part of understanding your supply chain and the potential risk associated with your decisions. That said, you cut your risk by moving back through the assembly systems and being as responsible and thoughtful on those items that you can source differently.

R/

Sarah

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

This is why we need to switch to Russian consumer electronics

Remember, Russia is our friend, Russia has always been our friend, China has always been the enemy.

I look forward to my LADA smartphone