Straight From The Hart

In December 2015 a presumed Russian cyber-attacker successfully seized control of the Prykarpattyaoblenergo Control Center (PCC) in the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Western Ukraine, leaving 230,000 without power for up to 6 hours. This marked the first time that a cyber weapon was successfully used against a nation’s power grid. The attackers were skilled strategists who carefully planned their assault over many months, first doing reconnaissance to study the networks and siphon operator credentials, then launching a synchronized assault in a well-choreographed dance. The control systems in Ukraine were surprisingly more secure than some in the U.S., since they were well-segmented from the control center business networks with robust firewalls, emphasizing just how vulnerable power systems are globally. The above paragraph was written by Daniel Wagner in the Huffington Post on May 24 of this year.  He goes on to warn that most Americans have a false sense of security and are becomin...

Very few of us make it through life without some kind of “Triumph Over Tragedy” story.  I talked to Lebanon’s Gail Anderson this week about her family’s experience with surviving tragedy. It was in 1948 that William and Clarise Splan with their two young children were taking a vacation in the Bennett Spring area.  Many times people return from vacation saying they wished they could have just stayed in their vacation spot forever.  William Splan actually  thought he had made his family’s dream come true when he discovered the Bennett family were wanting to sell the old Bennett Hotel and decided to purchase it for his family.  Even before the movie, he had often said he wanted to live on land where “the river runs through it”. He sold their house in St. Louis and moved his young family to what is unarguably one of the most beautiful nature spots in Missouri.  But just a year later in 1949 tragedy struck the family.  His two children, Gail and Bi...