Grid was penetrated, hacking behind outage: Energy Minister

Passengers outside Borivli station after the power cut halted trains

Mumbai's power transmission and distribution network needs to be protected from cyberattacks," Energy Minister Dr Nitin Raut told the state legislature on Wednesday. Two days after the state home minister confirmed the possibility of a cyberattack, established in a report of the Cyber Department, Raut said grid protection has become pertinent.

Dr Nitin Raut, state energy minister

The cyberattack on the power system is supposed to have caused the blackout in Mumbai and neighbouring areas on October 12, 2020.

Raut said the Cyber Department has recommended separating information technology (IT) from operational technology (OT) of the transmission grid and upgrading both systems. It has asked for password management and upgrading the cyber system of the state load dispatch centre (SLDC).

"We have received reports of all agencies that probed the blackout and are working on recommendations made therein for long- and short-term benefits," said Raut, adding that Mumbai's islanding system will also be upgraded and embedded power generation increased to meet the rising demand and over-dependency on electricity supply from outside.

Though the Centre ruled out a cyberattack behind the city's blackout, the minister placed on record the findings of the Cyber Department. He said 14 trojan horses had penetrated the state transmission firm's IT system and some of them had easily breached a firewall of OT and IT servers.

"The cybersecurity ecosystem of SLDC was easily breached by suspicious codes and software programmes. The IT system gave three alarms in a duration of less than one minute and this showed the possibility of a cyberattack. Foreign IPs tried to log in to the SLDC server repeatedly and 8 GB data was run through it," Raut added.