Energy (Includes Power and Utilities)

June 12, 2022

Hacker attacks paralyzed the websites of the regional utility Entega and the municipal utility Stadtwerke Mainz. There is no fear of supply interruptions for private and commercial customers, as these systems are separately secured.

At the same time as Entega, the lights also went out on the Stadtwerke Mainz website. Both companies are managed by their joint subsidiary, the IT service provider Count+Care. The malware got into the system because an employee had accidentally opened an email attachment. Entega’s website and e-mail server were paralyzed as a result. The systems of the Darmstädter Bauverein and the Frankfurt utility company FES were also affected by the attack on Count+Care, an Entega subsidiary.

To repair the damage, the hackers apparently demanded a ransom of 15 million euros. Entega let the ultimatum expire without paying, and much of the customer data was leaked on the dark web. An Entega spokesman said the majority of customers could be affected, but to varying degrees. The investigation into the stolen data is still ongoing. According to Entega’s annual report, the number of customer contracts at the end of 2021 was almost 700,000.

According to information from the Frankfurter Rundschau, the hacker gang “Black Cat” is said to be behind the attacks. The newspaper relies on information from an insider. “Black Cat” was recently also responsible for attacks on the IT systems in the Austrian state of Carinthia , where they also demanded a ransom.

February 24, 2022

German wind turbine maker, Enercon GmbH, is still restoring remote monitoring and maintenance capabilities for its turbines affected by a satellite outage at the end of February.
The company said over 90 percent of its 5,800 machines are online. The communication link has been restored for 1,156 wind parks in central Europe and service teams continue to work on the remaining 193 wind farms, the wind turbine manufacturer said Friday.
The remote monitoring and maintenance of the 5,800 machines with a combined output of more than 10 GW was affected by a satellite outage at Viasat on the same day as Russia invaded Ukraine. Viasat also had satellite operations going on in Ukraine and Enercon may have suffered as a part of being collateral damage in the attack.

March 31, 2022

A cyberattack shut down a German wind turbine maker’s IT systems across multiple locations and business units March 31.
Nordex designs, sells and manufactures wind turbines, reporting just over $5.9 billion in sales last year. The company has factories in Germany, China, Mexico, United States, Brazil, Spain and India.
“On 31 March 2022 Nordex Group IT security detected that the company is subject to a cyber security incident,” the company said in an advisory. “The intrusion was noted in an early stage and response measures initiated immediately in line with crisis management protocols. As a precautionary measure, the company decided to shut down IT systems across multiple locations and business units.”

April 26, 2016

A nuclear power plant in Germany suffered from an infection of computer viruses, but they appear not to have posed a threat to the facility’s operations, the station’s operator said April 26.
The Gundremmingen plant, located about 120 km (75 miles) northwest of Munich, is run by the German utility RWE.
The viruses, which include W32.Ramnit and Conficker, ended up discovered at Gundremmingen’s B unit in a computer system retrofitted in 2008 with data visualization software associated with equipment for moving nuclear fuel rods, RWE said. The operating system ended up saved because it was not connected to the Internet.
Malware was also on 18 removable data drives, mainly USB sticks, in office computers maintained separately from the plant’s operating systems. RWE said it increased cyber security measures as a result.