back to article Wind turbine farm hack exposed as hoax

Claims of a supposed hack against the computers controlling wind turbines run by NextEra Energy Resources, a subsidiary of Florida Power & Light, are increasingly looking like a hoax. "Bgr R" posted the information to a full disclosure mailing list over the weekend in what the poster said was an act of revenge after Florida …

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  1. Dave Murray

    Idiot

    Surely he just proved they were right to sack him? Not only does he have criminal tendancies but he knew of a vulnerability in their Cisco security management software and didn't fix it so he's useless too.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Third option

      Or he complained about it time after time after time and nothing happened, seems more likely than him not reporting it.

      1. crowley

        Fourth option

        He was hoping to dip their share price to make a short sell profitable.

    2. mikeHingley

      or....

      Maybe he highlighted the Cisco security issue, and was sacked to sweep it under the carpet...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    screenshots were lifted screenshots

    'He"s found that the 'screenshots" provided have merely just been lifted out of pdfs.'

    http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2011/Apr/265

    1. Elmer Phud

      Screenshots

      Before getting the elbow from work - bet he knew it was coming - he takes some screenshots and bungs them on a memory stick to take home. Got home and knocked up the rest of it, changing dates and stuff. (Or something like that).

      But by bragging about it does it show that he's too stupid to have doen all that work or does it show he needed everyone to know how much time he'd put in?

      At the end of the day he seems he may be a bit of a twat.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Troll

    He should have disabled

    the over-speed protection - we need more massive turbines going berserk on YouTube.

    1. Roger Greenwood
      Happy

      Need to use a double bluff . . .

      i.e. change overspeed to 50mph at least, then next day change it again back to normal less 10% or similar. When they get wind they have been hacked, they look in the logs, see the value WAS 50mph at the last change, and reset it accordingly. Then wait for a storm. Genius. Maybe.

      p.s. this information is classified.

      1. W. Keith Wingate
        Coffee/keyboard

        @Roger Greenwood

        " When they get wind they have been hacked,"....

        Nice. It took a lot of bluster to pull that one off mate...

  4. Jon 52

    just cause he didn't fix it

    I got to know numerous security flaws in my companies systems, when I pointed some out, the Defect Review Board decided many wern't cost effective to fix (not enough people would find them, and/or you would have to really know the code to find anyway (woo security by obscurity).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      same everywhere

      pretty much every company has flaws in its systems that are well known to its staff.

      I would bet that pretty much every system ever written has flaws that are known to its creator

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Sacked worker breaks wind in..."

    Umm, think I may have miss-read the headline.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Still don't get it

    Why would any sensible designer ever design a control system for something as important as (any kind of) power station that has access from outside the plant? Oh wait, I think I answered my own question...

    By the way - Roger Greenwood - "When they get wind they have been hacked,"

    Marvellous, thank you.

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