Iran-linked hackers reportedly shut down UK power plant for four days

A small UK power plant was forced offline for four days in July after a cyber attack reportedly carried out by hackers linked to Iran, marking the first known incident of its kind in Britain. The government confirmed the outage but emphasized that it posed no risk to the wider energy grid, and has not formally attributed the attack to any nation or group. The targeted facility was a minor gas-fired peaker plant, far below the threshold for mandatory cyber incident reporting. The attack coincided with widespread intrusions into US water systems across 12 states, where hackers exploited internet-connected Siemens S7 controllers using AI-generated scripts. US agencies have blamed Iran for those incidents, describing them as an active and escalating threat. British intelligence had previously assessed an Iranian attack on domestic infrastructure as unlikely, yet noted Iran’s significant investment in cyber warfare capabilities. The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre handles hundreds of critical infrastructure attacks annually and warns that AI is lowering the barrier for launching sophisticated intrusions. Officials have not disclosed how the attackers accessed the plant or whether the UK incident is connected to the US water attacks.

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