Pierluigi Paganini
March 21, 2018
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Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello plans to privatize the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority and to modernize the outdated infrastructure.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.
“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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(Security Affairs – Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, hacking)
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