Chinese Hackers Sat Undetected in Small Massachusetts Power Utility for Months

In late 2023, the FBI alerted the Littleton Electric Light and Water Departments (LELWD) that it had been breached by a Chinese-state-sponsored hacking group for over 300 days. With the help of cybersecurity firm Dragos and Department of Energy-funded sensors, LELWD confirmed the intrusion, identified the hackers' movements, and ultimately restructured its network to remove them. PCMag reports: At the time, LELWD had been installing sensors from cybersecurity firm Dragos with the help of Department of Energy grants awarded by the American Public Power Association (APPA). 'The sensors helped LELWD confirm the extent of the malicious activity on the system and pinpoint when and where the attackers were going on the utility's networks,' the APPA said last year. Today, Dragos released a case study (PDF) about the hack, which it blamed on Voltzite, a 'sophisticated threat group...that overlaps with Volt Typhoon.'

The call from the FBI forced Dragos 'to deploy quickly and bypass the planned onboarding timeline' for the LELWD, it says. It discovered that Volt Typhoon 'had persistent access to LELWD's network.' Hackers were looking for specific data related to [operational technology] operating procedures and spatial layout data relating to energy grid operations,' Dragos tells SecurityWeek. In the end, Dragos confirmed the compromised systems did not contain 'customer-sensitive data,' and LEWLD changed their network architecture to kick Volt Typhoon out, the case study says. Groups like Volt Typhoon, 'don't always go for high-profile targets first,' said Ensar Seker, Chief Security Officer at SOCRadar. 'Small, underfunded utilities can serve as low-hanging fruit, allowing adversaries to test tactics, develop footholds, and pivot toward larger targets.'

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