The attack on Morgan Hill

The following was reported by Bruce Perens (one of the leaders of Debian GNU/Linux), and this is based on his report.

Shortly after midnight on Thursday, April 9, 2009, unidentified attackers descended into four cable shafts in the city of Morgan Hill (Northern California, population 33,556) and cut the eight fiber-optic cables that serve communications in the area, in what appears to have been the first organized attack on the electronic infrastructure of an American city. Its implications, while surprising, are almost passed unnoticed.

The effects, however, were devastating. The city of Morgan Hill and parts of three neighboring counties lost emergency service (911), cellular telephone communications, landlines, DSL (internet) and various private networks, fire department communications, remote burglar alarms, ATMs, credit card terminals, and utility monitoring. Furthermore, some resources that shouldn't have been affected, such as the local hospital's internal network, proved to be dependent on external resources, leaving the hospital stranded for a day.

Commerce was disrupted in a 100-mile corridor around the community, from San Jose to Gilroy and Monterey. Cash was king for a day, as ATMs and credit cards were out of order, leaving many without enough money to purchase essential goods. Service workers dependent on communications were sent home, and numerous businesses managing just-in-time operations for agriculture were unable to communicate.

In other words, the area was cut off from the surrounding internet.

The motive for the operation is unclear. Theft was suspected due to the remote alarms being disrupted, but no theft was committed. It was thought to be an attempt to manipulate the market, but nothing unusual emerged. It was thought to be terrorism, but nothing unusual happened. Some believe it was revenge by former communications workers, given the knowledge required for such an action.

Or perhaps, after all, it was just a test...

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