US power company denies hacker’s wind turbine claim

A power company in the US says there is no evidence to support a hacker’s claim that they accessed the control system for a wind turbine that it operates.

As first reported by IDG News, somebody claiming to be a former employee of NextEra Energy Resources posted what appeared to be details of the control system online. They said they had been "illegitimately" fired by the company, and wanted to embarrass its owners.

However, the company says that there is no evidence to suggest that the hacker had sufficient access to cause any damage. "We have not seen any evidence of a breach," a company spokesperson said.

The ability of hackers to access the control systems of energy infrastructure is a matter of concern, as it would allow them to cause considerable harm.

In related news, an Iranian military commander has accused engineering giant Siemens of providing details of its control system to US and Israeli authoritiess, who they accused of building the Stuxnet worm that was discovered at Iranian nuclear facilities last year (Stuxnet is designed specifically to attack Siemens-built control systems).

"The investigations show the source of the Stuxnet virus originated in America and the Zionist regime," said Gholamreza Jalali, according to an Iranian newspaper. "The Siemens company must be held accountable and explain how and why it provided the enemies with the information about the codes of SCADA software and paved the way for a cyber attack against us."

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Ben Rossi

Ben was Vitesse Media's editorial director, leading content creation and editorial strategy across all Vitesse products, including its market-leading B2B and consumer magazines, websites, research and...

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