Cyberattacks have hit at least three wind power firms in Germany in the two months since Russia invaded Ukraine.
A European wind power industry association says the timing of the hacks suggests possible links to hackers sympathetic with Russia aiming to wreak havoc on European renewable energy systems as Europe looks to cut its reliance on Russian fossil fuels.
German firms Enercon, Nordex Group, and Deutsche Windtechnik have all reported cyber incidents in recent weeks. Earlier this month, Conti, a group that declared support for Russia at the start of the war in Ukraine, claimed responsibility for the attack on Nordex.
The cyberattacks on Germany-based wind power companies began on the day on which Russia invaded Ukraine—February 24.
Turbine maker Enercon GmbH announced a massive disruption of the satellite communication following a cyberattack on a satellite that day.
“Communication services provided via the satellite went down at almost exactly the same time that Russian troops invaded Ukraine,” Enercon said last week in its latest update on the cyber incident. Around 30,000 satellite terminals used by companies and organizations from various sectors were affected across Europe, including 5,800 Enercon wind energy converters (WECs) in central Europe with a total installed power of more than 10 gigawatts.
“The incident is suspected to have happened in connection with the Russian war of aggression, the disruption of the communication to the WECs is collateral damage,” Enercon said, noting that “There is no risk to the WECs and never has been.”
Earlier this month, another turbine maker, Nordex, reported a cyber security incident was detected on March 31, and response measures were initiated immediately. The company shut down IT systems across multiple locations and business units.
“Preliminary results of the analysis suggest that the impact of the incident has been limited to internal IT infrastructure,” Nordex said in an update on April 12.
Russia-backing Conti ransomware group claimed responsibility for the cyberattack on Nordex a few days later. Oilprice.com - link - Tsvetana Paraskova - link - more like this (cyber) - link - more like this (Germany) - link
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