Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) hacked over the weekend

Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) power utility confirmed early this week that it has been hacked over the weekend.

A few days ago, the US government issued an alert to warn of cyber attacks powered by Russian state-sponsored hackers against US critical infrastructure.

News of the day is that Puerto Rico power utility, aka Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority or PREPA, confirmed early this week that it has been hacked over the weekend.

Last year, PREPA filed a form of U.S. bankruptcy to shed some $9 billion in debt. Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello plans to privatize the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority and to modernize the outdated infrastructure.

The bankrupt power utility confirmed that there is no risk for its customers because their data were not compromised by hackers.

The hackers did not access the customer service system at Puerto Rico power utility.

According to the Executive Director Justo Gonzalez Torres, on Sunday night, the computer infrastructure of PREPA suffered a security breach, he also added that an investigation is ongoing.

“In these moments we are protecting the systems and working to resolve the situation,” said Gonzalez.

At the time there is no evidence for the involvement of Russian hackers in the attack against the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.Anyway, the attribution of such kind of cyber attacks is very hard because threat actors adopt sophisticated techniques to remain stealth

“As of Monday evening, there was no indication that Russia was to blame for PREPA’s hack.” reported the Reuters.

“When asked about potential sources of the attack, a spokesman for PREPA said the matter was “being investigated and referred to the relevant authorities,” declining to say who those authorities were.”

In September, the PREPA grid was destroyed when Hurricane Maria that hit Puerto Rico, 3.4 million residents of the U.S. commonwealth went in the dark.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, hacking)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.