Gov. Shutdown 2018: Is Critical Infrastructure Currently Under Attack?

By now you've probably heard about what looked like an "alien invasion" in New York after a Con Edison "malfunction" created a partial blackout.

While the Federal government is currently at reduced strength due to the partial government shutdown, I've been noticing some rather disturbing articles popping up recently - all critical infrastructure related.  Some have pre-dated the shutdown, but all have been very recent.

I keep a close eye on RSOE EDIS for critical infrastructure related events. These are usually weather related - but considering this has been a rather mild winter for the US so far, I'm rather surprised at some of what I've noticed.

So, here's a few issues RSOE detected...

Over 50% of the country affected by a CenturyLink outage, knocking out 911 communication.

Most recently - an gas leak and fire at a Nuclear power plant.


Some additional articles from Google News...

Fire at Nearman Creek Power Station where fire suppression malfunctioned.

Fire at a New York State Substation

Thousands of Clear Spring, MD customers without power.

Over 1,500 Morris Township customers lose power.

Thousands affected by Sioux Falls power outage.

Cyber Attack against U.S. newspapers prevents distribution.


Google Searches for "Power Outage" on the rise

More interesting is that searches for "power outage" seem to be rising over the last 30 days.

One of the ways DownDetector.com identifies outages is through examining social media.  It makes sense then, that in the case of a power outage, people would search Google to find their power company's contact information to report the outage.


I know there are a lot of unknowns here, but this should probably be a wakeup call - power outages can and will happen, even if they aren't part of a cyber attack.  You and your family/company should be ready.