40 sub-stations in Telangana too faced attack from Chinese hackers
On a day central power minister RK Singh denied reports of Chinese cyberattacks leading to a major power outage in Mumbai last year, top Telangana electricity officials said they had received alerts about Chinese malware entering 40 sub-stations from the Central Electricity Authority.
Late on Monday evening, the CERT-In (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) reported from a trusted source that China-based threat actor group command and control servers were trying to communicate with systems belonging to Telangana SLDC (State Load Dispatch Centre) and asked the Telangana power utilities to take all protection and safety measures.
The SLDC monitors power supply situation in the state and the malware had entered 40 substations, but efforts by the hackers were successfully thwarted by state government agencies. “After we got an alert from the central authorities, we have removed all malware in 40 substations in SLDC and strengthened our firewall. Telangana is one among seven states that Chinese hackers tried to communicate with the power systems,” Telangana Transco and Genco chairman and managing director D Prabhakar Rao told TOI on Tuesday.
He said various measures were taken by TS Transco, including blocking server IPs communicated by CERT-In, temporarily disabled control function for remote operation of circuit breakers from SLDC among other measures. “We ensured smooth power supply to all consumers of the state,” Prabhakar Rao said.
This is not the first time Telangana power utilities were targeted by the hackers. In April 2019, the website of Telangana State Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (TSSPDCL) that supplies power to various districts
