Small UK power plant taken offline by cyber attack, government says

A small power plant in the UK was forced offline last month by a cyber attack, with officials insisting that the wider electricity network was never at risk.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said the incident involved a small-scale generator and did not threaten energy supplies. It has since contacted power companies across the country to warn them about the risk of cyber attacks.

The Daily Telegraph reported that the attack was carried out by hackers linked to the Iranian government. The site itself has not been identified; both DESNZ and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) refused to provide further details for security reasons. Officials stressed that this was not an attack on an essential service such as a large power station.

The plant remained offline for four days, according to the Telegraph.

The episode has focused attention on the smaller gas-fired generators that the UK relies on to provide short-term power when needed. While an individual unit would not normally be considered critical, a coordinated cyber campaign against many of them could create difficulties for grid operators.

Protecting energy supplies has become a key challenge for the government, which is updating its cyber security regulations and working on a new energy resilience strategy due later this year.

Iran has long been regarded as a capable cyber power, and Western security officials have been on alert for state-directed or state-linked hacking activity since tensions with the US escalated earlier this year. So far, however, there has been limited public evidence of significant Iranian cyber operations in the UK.

The same period has also seen US investigators examine whether Iranian hackers gained access to water systems in at least seven states, a sign of how seriously Western governments now view the threat to critical infrastructure.