December 3, 2009: Internet security specialists are becoming increasingly alarmed at how the electrical power grid, and other utilities, in the West are growing more vulnerable to Cyber War attack. This is largely because these utilities are becoming more networked. This increases their efficiency. The power grid, in particular, is increasingly being converted to a "smart grid" (with power meters at homes and businesses being connected to the power company network, and power plants under a greater degree of dispersed control.)
The problem is that all this new networking activity is not being carried out with enough attention paid to security. These new utilities networks are already under attack by the usual criminal hackers looking for PCs to covertly take over to use as zombies (to send spam or seek out other PCs to infect.) This demonstrates that these systems are also vulnerable to a military type attack, meant to shut down the power grid, or any other vulnerable utility.
