Terror hackers might hit hospitals and water methods in cyber assault on the National Grid

Hospitals and water systems could be hit if hackers target the National Grid in a cyber attack, experts are warning.

They say such a move could cause blackouts across the UK, while transport networks could suffer too. Any attack that takes out the National Grid could lead to a “black start scenario” where it has to be restarted from scratch, boffins said.

But it is unclear how long that would take as it’s never happened before, they added. A small power plant in the UK was shut down during a cyber attack in July by hackers affiliated to the Iranian regime.

For security reasons, neither the Government nor the National Cyber Security Centre, which deals with attacks on critical infrastructure, would give further details of the site affected.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said the incident had affected a small-scale generator. Officials insisted that at no point had there been a risk to the wider energy system.

But Daniel Thomas, a security and cyber crime expert at the University of Strathclyde, said an attack that forces the UK national grid into a “black start” could have massive consequences.

He told the Daily Star: “One of the most worrying impacts would be an attack taking out the National Grid and resulting in a black start scenario where the grid has to be restarted from scratch.

“That has never been done before and so we cannot be sure how long it would take. There is a lot of work going on to prepare for this scenario, but it could lead to the country being without electricity for days.”

Vasileios Karagiannopoulos, a cybercrime and cybersecurity professor at the University of Portsmouth, echoed the warning that the country’s power network would be a prime target for hackers attempting to hit Britain. He said power hubs could become “inoperable” and cause a series of “large scale” blackouts.

The professor said: “The worst case scenario would be a severe attack targeting multiple parts of the power grid and rendering a series of power hubs inoperable. This could cause large scale blackouts across regions, which would then impact on other infrastructures gradually.

“As indicated, this seems to be a very remote scenario and it is more possible that we will see more limited and targeted attacks on specific systems and infrastructures that might be deemed more vulnerable by the attackers without, however, having the potential to cause large scale consequences for the UK and its citizens overall.”

Despite the damage a worst case scenario cyber attack could have on the UK, he said the risk of a “large-scale” cyber attack on the country is highly unlikely. He added: “The UK’s critical infrastructure has multiple layers of redundancy and resilience built in, making a large-scale, simultaneous collapse extremely unlikely.

“Perhaps the most important infrastructure is the power grid as it powers many other infrastructures, from water filtration to hospitals and traffic/transport systems and attacking the grid could perhaps have a wider effect than other targets.

“It is, however, very difficult to have an attack of such magnitude that will cause a total collapse of the grid, as not all plants and power sources are interconnected and there is a diverse mix of power sources that the UK relies upon for power, internally and from external sources. On top of that, the UK has put processes of quick recovery for its power grid in place (black start) in case a major incident happened.”

For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.