Russian hackers reached access to Canadian gas network
Pentagon leak warns that criminals are about to attack Canada's infrastructure.
Recently, large amounts of classified information, long and meticulously collected by U.S. intelligence agencies, have appeared online. Terabytes of material on U.S. and NATO cooperation in Ukraine, Chinese secrets, U.S. espionage, as well as information regarding the Zarya hacker group.
The Wall Street Journal was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the documents, but the materials contain enough detail to give them credibility. The Russian embassy chose not to comment on the U.S. request, leaving the allegations unanswered.
Intelligence suggests that the criminals acted with the FSB and intended to hack into the distribution network of natural gas. Canada is one of the world's largest producers of the resource. The country's energy regulator controls 68,000 km of pipelines, most of which are in operation. Major Canadian companies have already reported that their infrastructure was not damaged by the attempted hacking.
Hackers claim that the access they gained will allow them to increase pressure in the valve, disable alarms and shut down the gas distribution center. According to the researchers, Zarya is a relatively new hacker formation. The criminals are descendants of Killnet, the collective that has claimed responsibility for a wave of cyberattacks in Ukraine.
Experts are not very surprised that hackers may have been able to access the gas distribution network. However, they note that there is a huge difference between disrupting Canada's power supply and damaging property. It's quite common for hackers to gain access to industrial facilities. The truth is that "pushing buttons" doesn't necessarily mean that there will be a disruption or economic loss. It can take years before criminals figure out the inner workings and trigger an accident.
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