Using Disinformation To Weaken Power Grids

Researchers from New York University and the National University of Singapore have published a paper discussing the potential for disinformation campaigns to affect human behavior enough to cause blackouts in metropolitan electrical grids. Through surveys and modeling, the authors were able to demonstrate how creating false electronic communications from electrical companies could influence customer behavior, causing an increase in power consumption that could cause significant damage to a city’s power grid. The effectiveness of such an attack depends on how convincing and persuasive these false communications are to the average consumer, since changing behaviors to take advantage of vulnerabilities is the end goal. While the research was focused on the electric sector, there is nothing preventing such tactics from affecting other critical infrastructure sectors, as it requires “hacking” humans instead of devices.