Dan O’Dowd was interviewed by UK newspaper The Express following a cyberattack on the UK Foreign Office, and the cybersecurity threat from State actors the UK faces.
When asked if Moscow was responsible for the hack, Mr O’Dowd replied that it is “certainly possible”.
“We know it is happening all the time. The Russian’s can do it, the Chinese can do it, the North Koreans, they all do it.”
“They know exactly what your position is, they know your weaknesses, they know everything and they are listening to everything you do.”
“We have connected up the power grid to the Internet.
“All this data is collected about all the different sources of power and all the different users and it goes to some giant computer somewhere and optimises the system.”
“But the problem is you put it on the Internet and how did you connect it to the internet? You probably downloaded software off the Internet that gives you Internet connectivity.”
“But that software has tonnes of bugs in it. You can just go to hackers that and say that ‘I need to be able to hack this system’ and they would just do it.”
“Mr O’Dowd warned that if cyber attackers were to get onto the system and get control of power stations, it would spell “total catastrophe”. He added: “If you hack the power plant you could turn off the power and that would be bad.”
Dan’s comments were published in The Express, February 10, 2022. The full article can be read on The Express website here.