Unnamed officials tell NYT “precise” cyber-op took out Venezuela’s power grid

Unnamed officials told The New York Times that a “precise” cyber operation plunged parts of Venezuela into darkness in the period surrounding the capture of Nicolás Maduro. The NYT reported that the cyber-op turned off electricity for most residents in Caracas for only a few minutes, though outages near the military base where Maduro was seized lasted up to three days, and it also targeted Venezuelan military radar defenses. The paper said the United States Cyber Command was involved, according to the NYT.

The NYT noted that, if the intrusions were cyber-based, there would likely be forensic evidence for independent experts to confirm, but many details were left out by the report. The article also recalled past incidents, describing how Russia used BlackEnergy in 2015 and the later Industroyer/Crash Override framework against other grids, and it pointed to scepticism about the Venezuelan claim that missiles were partly to blame, while emphasising the claimed precision of US cyber capabilities.