Regardless, the successful assault holds many lessons for power generation plants and distribution centers here in the US, experts say the control systems in Ukraine were surprisingly more secure than some in the US, since they were well-segmented from the control center business networks with robust firewalls. The control systems in Ukraine were surprisingly more secure than some in the US. And as if that weren't enough, they also disabled backup power supplies to two of the three distribution centers, leaving operators themselves stumbling in the dark. They also struck two other power distribution centers at the same time, nearly doubling the number of substations taken offline and leaving more than 230,000 residents in the dark. The attackers didn't stop there, however. All he could do was stare helplessly at his screen while the ghosts in the machine clicked open one breaker after another, eventually taking about 30 substations offline. Although he tried frantically to log back in, the attackers had changed his password preventing him from gaining re-entry. Then as the cursor moved in the direction of another breaker, the machine suddenly logged him out of the control panel.
The operator grabbed his mouse and tried desperately to seize control of the cursor, but it was unresponsive. Somewhere in a region outside the city he knew that thousands of residents had just lost their lights and heaters. A dialogue window popped up on screen asking to confirm the action, and the operator stared dumbfounded as the cursor glided to the box and clicked to affirm. He watched as it navigated purposefully toward buttons controlling the circuit breakers at a substation in the region and then clicked on a box to open the breakers and take the substation offline. But just as one worker was organizing papers at his desk that day, the cursor on his computer suddenly skittered across the screen of its own accord. Inside the Prykarpattyaoblenergo control center, which distributes power to the region's residents, operators too were nearing the end of their shift. last December 23, and residents of the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Western Ukraine were preparing to end their workday and head home through the cold winter streets.
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