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GE Patches Vulnerability That Allows for a “Budget” Attack

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By Marcos Colon

General Electric has addressed a significant software flaw in its energy grid equipment that could allow an attacker with limited resources to disconnect the power grid.

The flaw was discovered by three researchers from New York University, who were set to present on the topic during July’s Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. GE, however, quickly responded to the flaw on April 19, according to a Reuters report.

While the researchers did not discuss the issue within the session abstract in detail, they did note that they “completely broke the homebrew encryption algorithm used by these protection and management devices to authenticate users and allow privileged operations.”

GE told Reuters that its in the “process of issuing notifications and providing upgrades to our affected customer base.” 

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