Vermont’s Burlington Electric Department recently took action to isolate a single laptop that federal officials have said has been linked to a potential Russian-related hacking campaign.
The laptop was flagged on Dec. 29 due to the detection of suspicious traffic. Vermont officials were quick to report the discovery to federal agents.
Officials with the state of Vermont said while the laptop was not connected to the Burlington Electric Department’s grid system, the utility was not hacked or compromised.
“We acted quickly to scan all computers in our system for the malware signature,” said Neale Lunderville, general manager of the Burlington Electric Department in a website message to the utility’s customers and residents. “We detected suspicious Internet traffic in a single Burlington Electric Department computer not connected to our organization’s grid systems. Our team takes the issue of cybersecurity very seriously and routinely assesses our systems for vulnerabilities with assistance from outside experts.”
Federal officials informed the utility that the specific type of internet traffic reported by the department has also been detected across the country.
The Washington Post was the first major publication to cover the story, however, the paper has had to issue major corrections since their article’s original publication. The paper’s editorial team stated that “an earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far.”