No impact on power grid on account of any malware attack, says govt

The government on Monday clarified that there was no effect on operations of Power System Operation Corporation (POSOCO) on account of any malware attack. As per a government statement, quick action was taken on advisories issued against such threats.

According to a study conducted by a US-based firm, Chinese malware was behind the blackout in Mumbai last year on October 12, when local trains stopped on their tracks, hospitals grappling with the high COVID-19 caseload had to switch on their emergency generators, and people at homes were left battling high levels of humidity.

Responding to the findings of the study, the Ministry of Power stated that due to the referred threat, there was no effect on any of the functionalities carried out by POSOCO. It further added that no data loss was detected due to the incidents.

The new study has linked the Mumbai blackout to the India-China border skirmish earlier that summer in the remote Galwan Valley, where at least two dozen soldiers from both sides succumbed to injuries, according to a report in The New York Times. The study states that the power outage was part of a broad Chinese cyber campaign against India, sending the message that “if India pressed its claims too hard, the lights could go out across the country”.

Further, the ministry added that rapid action was taken by the chief information security officers (CISOs) at all the control centres under operation by POSOCO for any advisory from different agencies like NCIIPC, CERT-in, CERT-Trans etc. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-in) is the nodal agency to deal with cyber security threats such as phishing and hacking. For critical information infrastructure protection, the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) is a national nodal agency.