Hackers brought down the power supply to hundreds of homes in Ukraine last week, in a cyber attack believed to be the first ever to result in a power outage.
The Ukrainian energy ministry said it was probing a “suspected” cyber attack on the power grid, targeting several regional power companies, which the country’s intelligence service blamed on “Russian special services”. Moscow has not responded to the allegation.
John Hultquist, head of cyber espionage intelligence at iSight partners, a US-based threat intelligence company, said it was the first time the cyber security industry had seen a cyber attack result in the shutdown of power.