What The Hack Happened?

The renewable energy transition is pivotal in the fight against climate change and requires a highly digitalised grid. However, the resulting interconnected international ecosystem of companies makes the grid vulnerable to cyber-attacks fuelled by geopolitical tensions. For example, the ransomware attack on German wind turbine manufacturer Nordex at the end of March 2022 indirectly affected European wind farms.

The renewable energy transition is pivotal in the fight against climate change, requiring a highly digitalised grid. However, the resulting interconnected international ecosystem of companies leaves the grid vulnerable to cyber-attacks fuelled by geopolitical tensions. For instance, the ransomware attack on the German wind turbine manufacturer Nordex at the end of March 2022 had an indirect impact on European wind farms.

Furthermore, the cybersecurity of Dutch wind farms relies on foreign supervision, and national supervisors still cooperate very little when it comes to overseeing companies that operate across borders. In Germany, the affected company is not classified as critical infrastructure. As existing wind farms continued to produce energy, the German cybersecurity watchdog did not investigate the hack.

Illustration by Andrei Pacea