White-Hot Hack (Kate and Ian #2)(72)

“For now.”

Disabling the Eastern Interconnection wouldn’t require bringing down every substation; compromising one out of every three would place a crippling load on those that were still functioning until they too succumbed and fell like dominoes as their systems strained and faltered under the increased weight.

When the task force figured out what the hacktivists were planning, the FBI had appointed teams who’d been dispatched to assist the utility companies in preparing for an attack. The protocol they put in place specified that if a substation were to fail, its power load would be split between several others so as not to overpower it and start a cascading outage. This had worked exactly the way they’d hoped it would when North Charleston fell, but the task force could not afford a false victory, so they remained vigilant even as they breathed a sigh of relief over clearing their first hurdle.

“Do we know what they used for the attack?” Ian asked. Most of the prior attempts to attack the power grid were attributed to a specific malware called BlackEnergy.

“We should know soon. Forensics is working on it now,” Charlie said.

Fifteen minutes later, Phillip motioned to the task force and they gathered around him in a loose huddle.

“One of the forensic analysts has identified the malware. It’s not BlackEnergy, although we’re probably all going to wish it was.”

“What is it?” Ian asked.

“It’s custom. Something they’ve designed for their own use. They’ve used an open-source programming language that isn’t especially sophisticated as far as technology goes, but it’s working well enough to get the job done.”

“Why wasn’t the malware uncovered during the scans?” Tom asked.

“Maybe they hadn’t deployed it yet,” Ian said. “They could have sent phishing e-mails that appeared to be from businesses and organizations the utilities regularly corresponded with. There would be no reason to fear clicking on the link or opening the attachment because they’d probably been sent long before we warned them of the possibility of an attack. Then the infected computers sent the access data to a server, which kept the channel open until they needed it. Now they’re sending the payload with a wiper utility that’s destroying parts of the system’s hard drive and causing the actual loss of power. The malware not only stops certain processes from running, it also erases the stored information. Then a backdoor opens, which gives them all the remote access they need.”

“That’s why the utility company in North Charleston first reported being unable to access their systems. Now that they’re dark, they’ve got a backdoor, which means they can’t control them at all,” Phillip said.

“They’re building a botnet,” Charlie said.

The revelation surprised no one. Ian hated to admit it, but the hacktivists had come up with an ingenious way to link together an aging infrastructure that often seemed connected by paper clips and string.

“Do you realize how long it would take to make sure enough substations were compromised to allow for a widespread outage?” Tom asked.

“Months,” Charlie said. “Maybe longer.”

“That means we wasted our time telling the utilities to patch all their holes,” Brian said.

“So what city’s next?” Tom asked.

“My vote is for Columbia. I imagine they’ll keep linking their way north until they reach DC,” Charlie said.

Phillip asked the agent running the electronic map to mark North Charleston with a pinpoint of red light and the remaining cities between North Charleston and DC in white. It was easy to see the path the attack might take as the string of white lights crawled to the north.

Half an hour later, the noise level rose and the chatter intensified as an agent announced that approximately 130,000 residents in Columbia, South Carolina, no longer had power.

“Sometimes it sucks to be right,” Charlie said.

Everyone in the room looked toward the electronic map on the wall and watched as the light representing Columbia, South Carolina, changed from white to red.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

An hour and a half into her drive, Kate stopped just outside Hagerstown, Maryland, to use the bathroom and fill her gas tank. Ian had sent a brief text.

Ian: Major outages reported in North Charleston and Columbia. Don’t worry. Just keep driving. Love you.

Kate: Just stopped for gas. Will get back on the road ASAP. Love you too.

Fingers of dread worked their way up her spine. Did that mean more cities in South Carolina would follow? Then North Carolina and Virginia? Would the outages nip at her heels until she met up with her dad and brother? What if they traveled faster than she could?

She pictured what driving in a blackout would be like and was grateful she’d just filled her tank.

Her brother called as she was placing the nozzle back on the pump.

“Hey, Chad,” she said as she screwed the gas cap on and got back in the car.

“Are you listening to the news?”

“It’s already on the news?” Before she’d pulled into the gas station, she’d been listening to music.

“You know about it?”

“Ian sent a text. I’m at a gas station. I thought they’d try to keep it out of the news.”

“Good luck with that. Pretty hard to ignore an outage that big. It probably didn’t take long for the media to get on it.”