{"id":214196,"date":"2025-05-17T10:09:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T15:09:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/solar-storms-and-cyberattacks-can-both-cause-blackouts-knowing-the-difference-could-save-billions-of-dollars"},"modified":"2025-05-17T10:09:49","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T15:09:49","slug":"solar-storms-and-cyberattacks-can-both-cause-blackouts-knowing-the-difference-could-save-billions-of-dollars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/solar-storms-and-cyberattacks-can-both-cause-blackouts-knowing-the-difference-could-save-billions-of-dollars","title":{"rendered":"Solar storms and cyberattacks can both cause blackouts. Knowing the difference could save billions of dollars"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cSpace weather can impact systems that use IT for critical functions and everyday processes,\u201d James Spann, a senior scientist at the Office of Space Weather Observations at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s (NOAA) National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) department, told Space.com<\/a> in an email. \u201cThese space weather impacts can have the same symptoms as a cyberattack, where systems will be brought down, or lockup, or transmit erroneous information.\u201d<\/p>\n

NESDIS oversaw a tabletop space weather exercise<\/a> conducted in May 2024, the first such drill testing the U.S. preparedness for a major solar storm. Results of the exercise, which brought together 35 US government agencies, were published in a report<\/a> in April.<\/p>\n

In one of the simulations during the exercise, NOAA and the U.S. Air Force reported a severe solar flare and radio burst, but another federal department or agency \u201creported contradictory information, suggesting that the radio and communications disruptions were possibly the result of a cyberattack,\u201d according to the report. Above all, it showed the need for effective communication following such events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSpace weather can impact systems that use IT for critical functions and everyday processes,\u201d James Spann, a senior scientist at the Office of Space Weather Observations at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s (NOAA) National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) department, told Space.com in an email. \u201cThese space weather impacts can have [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,1490,1495,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cybercrime-malcode","category-government","category-health","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}