FBI: Russian hackers targeting U.S. electric grid, other utilities

Russian hackers are conducting a broad attack on the U.S. electric grid, water processing plants, air transportation facilities and other targets in rolling attacks on some of the country’s most sensitive infrastructure, U.S. government officials said Thursday.

The announcement was the first official confirmation that Russian hackers have taken aim at facilities on which hundreds of millions of Americans depend for basic services.

Bloomberg News reported in July that Russian hackers had breached more than a dozen power plants in seven states, an aggressive campaign that has since expanded to dozens of states, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

“Since at least March 2016, Russian government cyber actors” have targeted “government entities and multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors,” including those of energy, nuclear, water and aviation, according to an alert issued Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security and FBI.

Critical manufacturing sectors and commercial facilities also have been targeted by the ongoing “multistage intrusion campaign by Russian government cyber actors,” the alert says.

Cyberattacks are “literally happening hundreds of thousands of times a day,” Energy Secretary Rick Perry told lawmakers during a hearing Thursday.

“The warfare that goes on in the cyberspace is real, it’s serious, and we must lead the world.”