Iranian hackers were able to infiltrate and shut down a small UK power plant last month, The Telegraph has reported.
For security reasons, it has not been disclosed which facility was impacted. But it did not affect one of Britain’s essential power plants, likely just a smaller gas-fired plant designed to act as backup when the grid is under strain.
It is thought to be the first time that Iran has been able to pull off an attack of this scale, but it underlines the potential weakness that Britain’s energy grid has to overseas adversaries. The attack took the plant offline for four days in total, but according to a government source, the generator was so small it was below the legal threshold required to notify the government of cyber activity.
Across the UK, there are hundreds of small-scale gas generators, often referred to as “gas peaking plants” or “peakers”, that are distributed to ensure that local grids can keep up with demand at times of low generation from renewables or other facilities...