The notification, released on Thursday, lists several contributing causes, including rising LNG exports from the United States, shifts in the global crude oil supply chain favoring the United States, continued Western pressure on Russia’s energy supply, and China’s reliance on imported oil.
The alert, however, did not mention any particular advanced persistent threat (APT) group linked with China or Russia, nor did it cite any cybersecurity incident targeting critical infrastructure. Instead, it makes general mention of how appealing U.S. networks are to foreign hackers and cautions recipients that Chinese and Russian hackers are always looking to examine important systems and improve their capabilities to exploit vulnerabilities they find.
According to Brian Harrell, former assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the Department of Homeland Security and now an energy sector executive, “Utilities see probing and low-level attempted attacks every day by the Russians and PRC.”
These low-profile attacks help hackers to get an insight into the important aspects of specific systems like where a target has open ports or determine potential firewall restrictions. “China doesn’t make a lot of noise, but the small local
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