IT Links to Blackout Investigated

Computerworld - WASHINGTON -- Federal and private-sector officials last week said they still can't rule out cybersabotage or IT-based failures as the cause of the Aug. 14 blackout.
Although no clear-cut evidence has been found to suggest that the blackout was the result of anything other than an internal technical failure, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces have been working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the private sector since the blackout to search system logs of critical utility control computers for evidence of intentional insider abuse or outside intrusions.
"All eight FBI field offices that were affected and all of the Joint Terrorism Task Forces were convened immediately on Aug. 14 to investigate the potential for terrorist involvement in the blackout," said Larry Mefford, executive assistant director for counterterrorism at the FBI, speaking Sept. 4 at a hearing of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security.
"Our JTTFs are looking at the issue from various perspectives. One is the external threat to see if we have signs of actual sabotage. We have not yet found any evidence of that," said Mefford.
"In addition, we're very concerned about the insider threat, somebody who would have access to critical systems from a physical standpoint, a sabotage standpoint and a computer intrusion standpoint," Mefford added. "We have not yet seen evidence of that, but this is [a] preliminary assessment. We are reviewing the computer logs for evidence of that type of activity."
Congress has also turned up the heat on both the government and the private sector to deliver answers on whether a cybersecurity failure in one or more systems could have contributed to the blackout, especially since the power failure occurred at the height of the Blaster worm outbreak.
Government and industry experts speaking unofficially with Computerworld have linked Blaster to the severity of the blackout, since on the day of the blackout Blaster affected the communications networks used to manage the power grid . But the degree to which the hampered flow of data over those networks might have contributed to the blackout is still unclear.
According to a transcript released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee that detailed telephone calls made between FirstEnergy Corp. and the Midwest regional power grid operator just hours before the blackout, a control room operator at FirstEnergy complained that the Akron, Ohio-based company had "no clue" what was happening because of unspecified computer problems.
"Our computer is giving us fits," the operator said. "We don't even know the status of some of the