Brazilian Blackout Traced to Sooty Insulators, Not Hackers

By Marcelo Soares
Threat Level
Wired.com
November 9, 2009

A massive 2007 electrical blackout in Brazil newly blamed on computer hackers was actually the result of a utility company's negligent maintenance of high voltage insulators on two transmission lines, according to reports from government regulators and others who investigated the incident for more than a year.

In a broadcast Sunday night, the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes cited unnamed sources in making the extraordinary claim that a two-day outage in the state of Espirito Santo was triggered by hackers targeting a utility company's control systems. The blackout affected some three million people. Another, smaller blackout north of Rio de Janeiro in January 2005 was also caused by hackers, the network claimed.

Brazilian government officials over the weekend disputed the report, and Raphael Mandarino Jr., director of the Homeland Security Information and Communication Directorate, told the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo that he's investigated the claims and found no evidence of hacker attacks, adding that Brazil's electric control systems are not directly connected to the internet.

On Monday, Furnas Centrais Eltricas, the utility company involved, told Threat Level it "has no knowledge of hackers acting in Furnas. power transmission system."

A review of official reports from the utility, the country's independent system operators group and its energy regulatory agency turns up nothing to support the hacking claim.

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