Free electricity!!! Really!! It all happened because a poorly secured network was hacked.

Like a plot straight out of a movie, the security system to an energy grid has been compromised, with the controls hijacked by a criminal network.  Unfortunately, there’s money to be made in security breaches! If the Puerto Rico utility company loses $400M from inaccurate meter readings, then some customers are gaining that amount. That’s a lot of motivation for unsavory types to create new attacks or execute attacks found on the Internet.  Check out this paper to learn how this particular attack unfolded and what could’ve been done to prevent it.    Lots of industries are tasked to confront and resolve this encroaching issue of hardware/network security.  Companies like NXP, Infineon, and Atmel are faced with the challenges as the fabric of the network becomes more ubiquitous yet more intersection points where security in hardware are more prevalent in the initial stages of design aspects.  See some salient technologies showing a promising road to resolving some of these challenges.