Coincidence or related events?
On Thursday evening, a fire at an electrical station on the American island of Puerto Rico plunged thousands of residents into darkness.
Shortly before, the electricity supplier Luma Energy announced that it had suffered a cyberattack, without making any connection with the disaster.
“There was a fire in a transformer at the Monacillo substation,” a neighborhood in the capital San Juan, said Luma Energy.
Two hours earlier, the company explained that it was the target of a denial of service attack that made it “difficult” for customers to access their online accounts.
Here's what LUMA Energy stated at 9:12 pm Three hours after the fire began.
pic.twitter.com/2XC2GIwLQi
- Pedro Correa Henry (He-They) (@pete_r_correa) June 11, 2021
This denial of service cyberattack, aimed at shutting down a website by overloading it with traffic, accounted for up to “two million visits per second,” says Luma.
It comes weeks after Colonial Pipeline, the operator of a massive US pipeline, and global meat giant JBS, both fell victim to ransomware, or "ransomware," cyber attacks.
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On this type of attack, the perpetrators exploit security holes to block computer systems and then demand a ransom to unblock them.
The Colonial pipeline, the main source of gasoline for most of the eastern United States, had been temporarily shut down, causing stockouts in several major cities.
More than 500,000 individuals affected
Luma had not established Thursday evening a link between the cyberattack and the fire, nor given estimates of the number of homes affected by the cuts.
The fire pushed “the protection systems to interrupt” the current “to avoid more damage”, explains Luma on his Facebook account, ensuring “work to restore service”.
Puerto Rico's representative to the US Congress, Jenniffer González, said on Twitter that the power cuts affected more than 500,000 individuals.
On social media, images showed large plumes of black smoke above the power station, along with impressive flames and sparks.
NOW: An explosion left hundreds of Puerto Ricans without power.
# ApagónPR #PuertoRico
pic.twitter.com/gkNe3fEj03
- Angélica Serrano-Román 🇵🇷 (@ angelicaserran0) June 10, 2021
The governor of the island, Pedro Pierluisi, who mentions an “explosion” to him, said “to take all the necessary actions to protect essential services, such as the electrical service”.
Authorities "are investigating the explosion" and officials "will have to answer to the people of Puerto Rico," he said on Twitter.
Luma Energy, a company created to manage Puerto Rico's electricity grid, has only been operating since June 1.
"The restoration (of the power) will begin in two hours and will continue during the night", wrote the supplier on Facebook at 7:40 pm local time (1:40 am in Paris).
