Sabotage refers to the intentional manipulation or damaging of objects or processes with the aim of inflicting damage on the victim. Computer centres or communications links owned by public authorities or companies make particularly attractive targets, since a dramatic effect can be achieved here with a relatively low effort.

The complex infrastructure of a computer centre can be selectively manipulated by external attackers, and particularly by insiders, by attacking specific, important components with the goal of disrupting operations. Here, inadequately protected building management systems and communication infrastructures, as well as central supply points are subject to a particular risk, which may not be monitored organisationally or technically and provide outsiders with easy and unobtrusive access.

Examples:

• In a large computer centre, manipulation of the UPS resulted in a temporary total power failure. The perpetrator had repeatedly switched the UPS to the bypass mode manually and then tampered with the main power supply to the building. There were are total of four blackouts over a period of three years. In some cases, this even resulted in damage to hardware. The service outages lasted between 40 and 130 minutes.
• Sanitary facilities were also available in a computer centre. By blocking the drains and turning on all taps at the same time, water penetrated into central technical components. The damage caused in this manner resulted in disruptions to the operation of the production system.
• Sabotage poses a special risk to electronic archives since a large number of documents requiring protection are stored in a small amount of space. In this way, it is possible to cause extensive damage with just minor, selective tampering under some circumstances.

Powiązane zgłoszenia

• BSI -

  Copyright by Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (https://www.bsi.bund.de/)