Not very fun stuff.

I have to admit I am a bit surprised at how many folks are jumping at the news that supposedly there were power outages in cities outside of the U.S. that were caused by hackers. It was in the Washington Post, so I agree that there is some credibility there, but my spidey sense is still tingling a little bit about this. At least that report included a followup comment from a CIA spokesperson, George Little (which was essentially "no comment" but lent some truth to the initial comment).

I am stuck wondering how much of this is hearsay and suspicion…

Part of the reason that I am curious is that most news reports suggested that Tom Donahue made his comments in person, but the InformationWeek article indicated that the comments actually came in a letter from Donahue that was read by Alan Paller. If the latter is true, I consider that a huge difference and a huge blunder by reporters. (It does appear that Donahue has been at this conference in previous years, however.)

I am familiar with Digital Bond and their work with SCADA systems, so I consider this clarifying, skeptical post on their blog an important addition to the trail of evidence.

It seems to me that an intrepid reporter would be able to identify "blackouts that affected multiple cities" somehow…

Update: One commenter on the Digital Bond site confirmed that Donahue was actually presenting, so now the question is simply how to interpret the information provided.

Update 2: The Daily Mail out of the U.K. cites "sources" that say these activities occurred in "Central and South America, including Mexico."