Power Outage Hits Millions in South America

Hot on the heels of news that the Xenotime syndicate is probing electrical grids in North America and Asia, the lights went out in South America. While officials in Argentina have said that a cyberattack is not one of the primary possibilities under investigation, the coincidence has many people questioning the security of critical infrastructure components.

On Sunday, an estimated 44 million people lost power across Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, with more limited losses in Chile and Brazil. The outage, described by officials as "unprecedented," had an impact on traffic signals, water supplies, train and subway services, and other public service and safety operations.

The outage, which began in the interconnection system at the Yacyreta Dam, had a significant cybersecurity impact on one-third of the "CIA triad" — confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data.

By Sunday night, power had begun to be restored across the impacted area.

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