North American blackout's Microsoft link?

[Urban Ranger]

Was the North American blackout Vole related?

As the Interim Report makes quite clear by assigning it as "Cause 1", it was this "Loss of Situational Awareness" by First Energy's control room operators that indirectly led to their loss of control of the power grid during and after the transmission line and generation plant outages that afternoon. In other words, loss of those SCADA systems blinded them.

But weren't those SCADA servers and operator consoles some of the custom built systems running Unix? No, it seems not, because the control server is called out separately in the report as a "GE Harris XA/21" system.

So, although the Interim Report doesn't get down to describing in detail what was running those SCADA servers, these system behaviours it details were not inconsistent with the symptoms seen in millions of data centers running Microsoft Windows systems when they were attacked by Blaster.

Systems slowed to virtual inoperation, processes stalled. Screens frozen and systems unresponsive to operator inputs. Systems that seemed to heal briefly upon rebooting, then stalled again. It sounds quite familiar

Utilities' power grid monitoring and control systems are supposed to be isolated, but it's not unreasonable to suspect that some utilities like First Energy have their internal networks Internet-connected, someplace in the system. Or that someone had an analog modem hooked up and linked to the Internet. Or that someone lugged an infected notebook into their LAN, behind the firewalls. It's hard to fully isolate private networks, so most utility network architects should assume they're not secured.

Thus, if these deductions are correct, the real question is: Why are the utilities using Microsoft systems in their mission-critical networks?

50 million people left in the dark on August 14 might like to know.

I guess we just have to wait for the final report. However, the estimation is on pretty solid ground. Such a revelation will cause serious damages, and not just to Microsoft.

[Nubclear]

Your trolling!

[Drake Tungsten]

Moderators don't troll; they "test" us...

[DinoDoc]

No. He's trolling.

[Drake Tungsten]

No. He's trolling.

Who? You Know Who isn't around anymore.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Who? You Know Who isn't around anymore.

That doesn't stop him from making a stupid thread based on half-information.

[Drake Tungsten]

That doesn't stop him from making a stupid thread based on half-information.

Well, to be fair, stupid threads based on half-information are the bread and butter of the Poly Off-Topic.

[mrmitchell]

Such a revelation will cause serious damages, and not just to Microsoft.

I call crap. Microsoft could get away with accidentally launching our nukes.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
That doesn't stop him from making a stupid thread based on half-information.

Stupid thread?

What the hell is "half-information?"

[DinoDoc]

Oh come on UR. This is such an obvious troll that even Tassadar spotted it.

[Drake Tungsten]

This is such an obvious troll that even Tassadar spotted it.

What's that supposed to mean? Tass is a top-flight troller; I'd be surprised if he hadn't noticed.

[DaShi]

Seriously, bad form.

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Tass is a top-flight troller;

I'm touched

[Drake Tungsten]

I wasn't serious. Just trolling...

[Nubclear]

I tried to insert something witty and insulting about you and rice here, but I couldn't come up with anything

[Ned]

If a "worm" caused the blackout, perhaps Microsoft would share liability.

Perhaps I should dump some of my Microsoft stock?

[Urban Ranger]

Now Bruce Schneier supports this viewpoint as well

[Asher]

[Urban Ranger]

/me laughes at Asher's pathetic response.

[JohnT]

*JohnT at UR's pathetic troll*

My daughter just had a BM and I gotta change her diaper. Any way we can find a way to blame MS on this as well? If so, let me know: I can use the money.

[optimus2861]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
What the hell is "half-information?"

"Half-information" is making stuff up out of thin air when the report itself never states what software the SCADA computers were running. It's poor journalism on anyone's part to attempt to place blame on Microsoft/Blaster for this until the facts are known.

As an engineer myself, I'd sure as hell hope whoever designed those SCADA systems wasn't so incompetent as to leave mission-critical control system PCs connected to the internet at large running Windows -- if so, that's where I'd place the first chunk of the blame.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Was the North American blackout Vole related?



I guess we just have to wait for the final report. However, the estimation is on pretty solid ground. Such a revelation will cause serious damages, and not just to Microsoft.

I call serious BS. First, the system wide and intersystem failures occur at a relay and breaker level, so there's no OS issues involved. The operations and dispatch center people's jobs focus on restoring power and connections, but in many cases, the same relays override them until load corrections and isolations allow you to restart block by block.

Dispatch and operations center issues (of whatever nature) may be a primary cause for the duration of the outage and the failure to reestablish power blocks in a timely manner, but they are not the cause of the initial outages, or the cascading failure.

Another point is that the XA/21 is a transmission management system, so it's far from the only SCADA/EMS system in any operations center.

BUT IF YA REALLY WANNA KNOW HOW YA SHOT YERSELF IN DA TOOTSIES, the XA/21 clients or servers run on Solaris or AIX6000.

Just remember, when you comment on electric utility technical issues, you're in my turf.

[DinoDoc]

I love being proven right.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Well, when someone serves you a hanging curve right over the middle of the plate, you just gotta hit it out of the park.

[DinoDoc]

MtG: Troll Slayer!

[Boris Godunov]

Looks like the only damage being done is to the anti-MS zealots, who further look like idiots for their baseless, ham-fisted attempts to smear MS.

[Asher]

This is why my response consisted only of Tux with a tinfoil hat.

It's more FUD from Urban Ranger, showcasing again just how little he knows about computers.

[JohnT]

Well, look: Here's the crux of the issue:

Thus, if these deductions are correct, the real question is: Why are the utilities using Microsoft systems in their mission-critical networks?

UR, the entire article was nothing more than supposition in the first place. I thought the OT was the Internet's repository of truth, facts, and reasoned debate. You let me down, man.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Looks like to me.

Just play nice.

edit - that was for Asher, not you, John.

[MichaeltheGreat]

BTW, you won't find MS products in many utility operations system platforms, but that's because the ****ing utilities are still cludging around with legacy protocols from the 1960's and 70's, a lot of overpriced proprietary specialty hardware because of regulatory issues and/or internally imposed constraints (if it was good enough for Grampa, it's good enough for me is the mindset of most utility operations) and a host of other reasons having nothing to do with MS products specifically.

And choice of OS is really secondary in mission critical systems design, because you have to conclude that any single component, and unpredictable combinations of components will fail spontaneously and without warning. The neener-neener-neener Cheny wagging about which OS goes how many days between reboots is pretty irrelevent when you have to assume that (a) both will fail, and (b) the systems needs to detect that failure and hand off control to redundant components in real time.