Update on the attacks on US power grid

Little bit of terror, little bit of human nature

I intended on publishing today or later in the night another post, Covid related, somewhat short, but quite meaningful and significant, but by chance, I found this. This got me by surprise, and it is clear there is a massive media blackout on this.

Directly correlated to the following.

Recent attacks on Energy substations

Man faces terror charge for damaging power plant outside Las Vegas

— A man is facing terror-related charges after police said he rammed his car through a gate at a solar plant outside Las Vegas and set his car on fire, disabling the huge facility, the 8 News Now Investigators have learned.

Around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Las Vegas Metro police responded to the solar plant on U.S. 93 north of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, sources told the 8 News Now Investigators. Employees at the plant said they found a car smoldering in a generator pit.

The Mega Solar Array facility provides energy to MGM properties but is run by a company called Invenergy.

The driver, later identified as Mohammad Mesmarian, 34, is accused of ramming through a fence and setting the car on fire. The car is registered out of Idaho, documents said

A man is facing terror-related charges after police say he rammed his car through a gate at a solar plant outside Las Vegas and set his car on fire, disabling the huge facility. (KLAS)

“Mesmarian clarified he burned the Toyota Camry a couple of days ago,” police said. “Mesmarian stayed he burned the vehicle at a Tesla solar plant and did it ‘for the future.'”

I was surprised by how “low-tech” and simple the attack was, by merely ramming his car into the substation, and setting it on fire. Simple, fast, hard to predict, hard to build measures against at least without some drawbacks.

I would also like to understand the “for the future” reasoning behind the attack, but given the details of the case, I doubt we will get much information for the foreseeable future, alas this gives us a few “pointers” to the future. Lone wolf attacks are the most disruptive, with a significant damage potential.

These will certainly increase as both radicalization driven by AI-based psychological/information war, and cognitive warfare by nation-states of special interest groups.

The Washington attacks were also solved, the culprits apprehended and the reason not as noble as the man above.

Feds reveal alleged motive behind Washington state power grid attacks

The four substations that were targeted were the Graham and Elk Plain substations operated by Tacoma Power and the Kapowsin and Hemlock substations operated by Puget Sound Energy. The damage to just the Tacoma Power substations was estimated to cost at least $3 million.

On Tuesday, the FBI identified 32-year-old Matthew Greenwood and 40-year-old Jeremy Crahan as the perpetrators of the attacks after analyzing their phone record

According to the criminal complaint, the reason for the attacks, which occurred over a 12-hour period and hundreds of miles apart, was to burglarize a nearby business while the power was out for nearly 15,000 customers in the area.

The outer chain-link fence around the Hemlock substation, which is run by Puget Sound Energy, was cut early on Christmas Day, court documents said. A “bank high side switch” was tampered with, leading to an outage that affected about 8,000 users.

The reason for such an attack, at a level that left many on social media discussing the possible culprits, with many stating they were former Special Operations was… to steal…stuff. I am often reminded that sometimes human nature is enough to explain a complex issue, and simple explanations are often more than not.

One has to wonder, as the American and global economy crawls to a halt and slowly slides into a recession, if such attacks such as these, based more on financial desperation, rather than a sinister plot might increase in number, and scope of damages. While not in the scope of the theme here, I have to voice my thoughts on this, in regard to all the other trends and how governments are responding to many other events.

When people get to their tipping/breaking point and have little to lose, such things can get out of hand pretty fast. Another aspect of such events is “mimesis”, you can read more about that and much more here, which serves as an introductory short article on Cognitive Warfare if you have any desire to understand the nuances on the subject, a decent starting point.

People imitating other people for many (psychological) reasons is the basis of social life, and human behavior, in a simplistic way. Source of the following quote.

· A power outage at LAX caused elevators to become stuck, trapping travelers and employees.

But Moore County represented the start of a truly concerning new trend in physical attacks on the power grid by domestic violent extremists, vandals and cyber criminals. According to Politico, physical and cyber assaults on the electrical grid are at the highest level since at least 2012. The Moore County attack is still under investigation by the FBI, and only days later, attacks targeted at least six stations in the Pacific Northwest. These were followed by break-ins on Christmas day where the perpetrators set fire to substations in Tacoma County, Washington, leaving more than 14,000 utility customers without power.

With this threat not only ongoing but actively escalating year after year, the Department of Homeland Security – just days before the Moore County attack – issued a bulletin warning that “lone offenders and small groups motivated by a range of ideological beliefs and/or personal grievances continue to pose a persistent and lethal threat to the Homeland.”

The bulletin also notes that “some domestic violent extremists who have conducted attacks have cited previous attacks and attackers as an inspiration.”

And with proposed increases in the grid to include wind and solar plants, often in remote areas, how to better protect them amidst this surge in attacks remains an open question.

I wish you a happy Sunday, and I appreciate everyone who chooses to support this Substack.