Operations & maintenance
of bad actors – now happening almost every 10 seconds, according to research, with their use rocketing upwards by 435% year-on-year in 2020. As Russian forces poured over Ukraine’s border, news broke of another significant attack, this time targeting German-based Enercon wind power infrastructure, and more specifically the satellites that provide remote monitoring to 5,800 wind turbines, collectively supplying 11GW of power across central Europe. The company said the cyberattack had led to “massive disruption” to satellite connections, provided through KA-Sat satellites belonging to global communications provider Viasat.
At the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Germany’s Enercon experienced a significant cyberattack targeting its satellites.
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Analysis by Ember found that across the European Union’s 27 member states, renewables accounted for more than a third (37%) of power generation in 2021, highlighting the growing role it plays in powering the bloc’s economies and keeping homes warm. It’s little wonder, then, that any disruption to renewable power would likely have a devastating impact – something Europe and its enemies are acutely aware of. But with gas supplies being compromised and the increasingly rapid threat of climate change, the renewable sector continues to grow, in particular wind energy generation. “As we are facing an energy crisis in Europe, wind energy is on the rise again.” says Ana Kosareva, an energy consultant with Ørsted and former chair of WindEurope’s Cybersecurity Task Force. “That means we should expect higher installations in both the onshore and offshore wind sectors.”
“Luckily, most of the wind farms had a backup connection in this particular case. Their operation wasn’t affected, while others switched to self-operating mode.”
Caught in the crosshairs $2.6m
The average cost of one single malware attack on a company. Accenture
30
Threats to supply have hit the headlines in the past year or so, largely thanks to bad actors. Windfarms, their operators and even the industry’s supply chain have all fallen victim. As 2021 drew to a close, Danish manufacturer Vestas was hit with a ransomware attack. The company moved to reassure its customers that the threat had been contained and had little impact on anything other than internal systems but, nevertheless, they had fallen into someone’s crosshairs. Ransomware attacks have become one of the most popular tools in the toolkit
Ultimately the impact was limited, largely thanks to existing contingency plans, according to Kosareva. “Luckily, most of the wind farms had a backup connection in this particular case. Their operation wasn’t affected, while others switched to a self-operating mode,” she says, noting the attack showed that the fallback strategy in place worked well. “We got away without any noticeable damage.” Just weeks later and another attack was reported. Nordex Group, a Germany-based turbine manufacturer, said it had to shut down IT systems across multiple sites to protect customers’ assets. Although again caught early, it seems this attack also targeted remote control capabilities; but the company said its intervention restricted any impact to internal IT systems.
The variety of targets impacted by these attempts to disrupt shows both the willingness of would-be attackers to pursue multiple elements of the sector, and the sector’s growing importance to the energy mix. “There are different types of cyberattacks and the consequences are, of course, different too,” Kosareva says.
She adds that in the case of the attack on satellite systems, a non-existent backup internet connection and lack of a fallback strategy at wind farms could have, depending on the wind situation, caused major problems for the grid and electricity supply; whereas attacks on individual companies might have caused a “negative financial, company image and similar [impacts]”.
She warns a successful attack on operational technology (OT) could result in greater numbers of people impacted by local power outages, system splits and potentially even a Europe-wide blackout, leading to shortages of supplies, such as water, fuel and food. “Therefore, we need to address the resilience of the OT and IT systems of the wind energy assets,” she notes.
Resilience is everyone’s responsibility “It must be noted that this is a shared responsibility of all parties – from technology providers and OEMs to the wind farms and grid operators, who must set
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