criticalinfrastructure
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NSA official: China is preparing for possible high-profile hacks
NSA official Rob Joyce told guests at a Wall Street Journal security conference that hacking-related Chinese activity had been climbing in recent months. He was concerned the country was "prepositioning" itself to attack "critical infrastructure" such as energy, health care, finance and transportation. China's hacking as of late has revolved around spying and swiping trade secrets, so this would be out of the norm.
Hackers shut down plant by targeting its safety system
Hackers have already attacked critical infrastructure, but now they're launching campaigns that could have dire consequences. FireEye reported that a plant of an unmentioned nature and location (other firms believe it's in the Middle East) was forced to shut down after a hack targeted its industrial safety system -- it's the first known instance of a breach like this taking place. While the digital assault was clearly serious in and of itself, there are hints that it could have been much worse.
Homeland Security classifies election infrastructure as critical
The Department of Homeland Security has officially classified election systems as critical infrastructure in order to keep them safe from tampering. Election infrastructure include storage facilities, polling places, voter registration databases, voting machines and other systems that help manage the election process and report and display its results. DHS' announcement came after US intelligence released a report directly accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of influencing the US presidential elections, mostly by ordering the use of cyber infiltration. If you'll recall, cyberattackers hacked into the Democratic National Committee's machines, as well as into over 20 states' election systems. However, none of the machines that were compromised were used for vote tallying.
