Dutch researchers warn of thousands of exposed wind, solar systems in Europe

Bouke van Laethem: Bouke van Laethem serves as Senior Project Lead for National & Sectoral CSIRT at the Dutch National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NL) and as an advisor at Digitale Doetank. His background includes national cyber incident coordination, CERT leadership, and hands-on experience as an incident responder and ethical hacker. He co-presented the research on exposed renewable energy systems at the ONE Conference in The Hague. Soufian El Yadmani: Soufian El Yadmani is the founder and CEO of Modat, an internet intelligence company, as well as head of research at CSIRT.global and a PhD candidate at Leiden University focusing on threat actor attribution and hacking automation. He is a frequent speaker at cybersecurity conferences. In this news, he is one of the lead researchers who identified and presented findings on thousands of exposed wind and solar power systems across Europe. Dutch National Cyber Security Centre: The Dutch National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NL) is the Netherlands' government agency responsible for protecting critical infrastructure and coordinating national cybersecurity efforts. It collaborates with intelligence services on threat assessments and recently issued joint warnings about emerging risks. In this development, a researcher from the NCSC co-authored and presented the findings on internet-exposed wind and solar systems. Research Context: The findings on exposed renewable energy systems were presented at the ONE Conference in The Hague by researchers from Modat and the NCSC-NL. Threat Landscape: Last month, Dutch intelligence agencies, the NCSC, and partners issued a joint statement warning that artificial intelligence is accelerating and amplifying cyber threats against government and society. Critical Infrastructure: Europe's critical infrastructure has faced suspected sabotage and cyberattacks frequently attributed by Western governments to Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.