Russian Hackers Seized Control of Norwegian Dam, Spy Chief Says (theguardian.com)
(Thursday August 14, 2025 @11:30PM (BeauHD)
from the behind-the-scenes dept.)
- Reference: 0178678152
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/08/14/232228/russian-hackers-seized-control-of-norwegian-dam-spy-chief-says
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/14/russian-hackers-control-norwegian-dam-norway
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian:
> Russian hackers [1]took control of a Norwegian dam this year , opening a floodgate and allowing water to flow unnoticed for four hours, Norway's intelligence service has said. The admission, by the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST), marks the first time that Oslo has formally attributed the cyber-attack in April on Bremanger, western Norway, to Moscow. The attack on the hydropower dam, which produces electricity, released 500 liters (132 gallons) of water a second for four hours until the incident was detected and stopped.
>
> The head of PST, Beate Gangas, said on Wednesday: "Over the past year, we have seen a change in activity from pro-Russian cyber actors." The Bremanger incident was an example of such an attack, she added. "The aim of this type of operation is to influence and to cause fear and chaos among the general population. Our Russian neighbor has become more dangerous." The incident did not cause any injuries or damage because the water level of the river and the dam, which is close to the town of Svelgen, was a long way below flood capacity. The alleged perpetrators reportedly published a three-minute video, watermarked with the name of a pro-Russian cybercriminal group, on Telegram on the day of the attack.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/14/russian-hackers-control-norwegian-dam-norway
> Russian hackers [1]took control of a Norwegian dam this year , opening a floodgate and allowing water to flow unnoticed for four hours, Norway's intelligence service has said. The admission, by the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST), marks the first time that Oslo has formally attributed the cyber-attack in April on Bremanger, western Norway, to Moscow. The attack on the hydropower dam, which produces electricity, released 500 liters (132 gallons) of water a second for four hours until the incident was detected and stopped.
>
> The head of PST, Beate Gangas, said on Wednesday: "Over the past year, we have seen a change in activity from pro-Russian cyber actors." The Bremanger incident was an example of such an attack, she added. "The aim of this type of operation is to influence and to cause fear and chaos among the general population. Our Russian neighbor has become more dangerous." The incident did not cause any injuries or damage because the water level of the river and the dam, which is close to the town of Svelgen, was a long way below flood capacity. The alleged perpetrators reportedly published a three-minute video, watermarked with the name of a pro-Russian cybercriminal group, on Telegram on the day of the attack.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/14/russian-hackers-control-norwegian-dam-norway
Why is it connected to the internet (Score:1)
by memory_register ( 6248354 )
Seriously, why? You could easily air gap this system and many like it.
Re: (Score:2)
by registrations_suck ( 1075251 )
Came to post this.
Disconnect that shit. Too bad for people who want to work from home and control the dam.
If you want to enable remote monitoring of the damn, maybe ok. Those systems should have no way to control the dam. Monitoring is a completely different function that should be entirely disentangled from any control functionality.
Watch Dogs warned us (Score:2)
by BinBoy ( 164798 )
The Watch Dogs game series was right. Everything will be connected to the internet. Nothing good came of it in the game and nothing will in real life. The only thing we can do is to hack the bad guy's pacemaker and kill him.
Re: (Score:2)
Regardless of who did it, there's a bigger question here: Why do they, or anybody for that matter, have critical infrastructure connected to the internet? It's critical infrastructure. You can't be too lazy or too cheap to have somebody on-site 24/7 and you can't build a firewall good enough to keep hackers out. Hackers are always looking for new ways to break in.