Michigan electricity utility downed by ransomware attack

another company

gets a lesson in security

If they don't recover their billing data

Many years ago I worked as a *nix Sysadmin at a power company in Oz.

The IT director there mentioned more than once that if they have non-operational IT for more than 3 days, they might as well shut down the business.

Wonder if that applies to this Michigan utility as well? If they no longer have their customer usage data since the last billing period - and if they also no longer have debtor/creditor info - they could be in a business ending event. :(

Your usage information was safe before "Smart Meters"

Because you couldn't get to the clockworks that was summing the current going into the house.

But when you put in a Smart Meter you are just relying on electronic counters that can be slowed, sped up, and rebooted remotely.

"Good Links - Bad Links" - film at 11.

Don't look Ethel!!! Don LOOOOK! Too late,...she'd already been mooned.

Funny coincidence though, another Michigan utility, DTE was down for maintenance the other day. Hmmmm? Wonder if it was a full court press for the state?

How hard can it be....

..... to have a clever bit of software running, that intercepts ALL inbound emails from external sources, and EDIT them such that all links are turned into plain text before they are allowed through to their original destination?

I work in IT but I wouldn't have a clue as to whether this is viable or not. It strikes me that it is a potential solution to this particular conundrum.

Just wondering.

LBWL is the height of incompetence

A few years back, we here in Michigan got a massive ice storm that knocked out power all over the place right around Christmas. Lansing got hit with the worst of it. BWL took WEEKS to restore power to their customers (I, myself was only without power for about 5 days fortunately), all the while providing ZERO updates to their customers through their website, social media, or any other outlet I was able to find. Despite the state of emergency, they only brought in a couple of extra crews from other utility companies to help with the repairs. Oh, and their director left with his family to go to New York on holiday right after the power outage started, real classy move there.

Meanwhile Consumers Energy (a larger, corporate utility, as opposed to BWL which is city-owned and operated) brought in dozens of additional crews from multiple other utility companies including ones from many states away, and shared timely updates via social media and their website. They had their customers back online in a much shorter time period despite having a much larger area with many more customers that they had to deal with.

I'm not one for privatization of public services, but when the public utility starts screwing up this bad, maybe it's time to consider it in that particular case. BWL is sadly incompetent. I will be so glad when I no longer have to deal with them.

The BWL is run by thieves gouging customers whenever they feel like it. They double the bills without any reason. It's blatant, and the company should be out of business. However, customers have no choice because there is no competition!