NEWS

Contractor cellular modems left inside chillers and UPS cabinets bypass plant firewalls and leave sites blind when an urgent controller flaw hits.

Nick Lynch traces one blind spot across European supermarket fridge hacks, CISA water-utility PLC alerts and data centers: cellular modems and remote links installed under HVAC, chiller and UPS service contracts that bypass the owner's firewall. After France's cyber agency warned operators in October, Censys counted internet-reachable Danfoss StoreView panels in France dropping from 1,825 to 537 in three days and 220 by Nov 2 simply because owners pulled them offline. Unlike grid assets under NERC CIP-003-9, most plants still have nobody assigned to update the vendor-link list after each service visit.

Nick Lynch on X · Nov 4, 2026

More from The Feed

NEWS

Midterm voters put data-center bans and limits on the ballot in about 40 localities across 13 states.

About 40 local ballot measures across 13 states targeted data centers, and Latitude Media, citing Ballotpedia, counted 24 already approved with most of the rest on track. DCD tallied at least 14 bans or limits passed in Ohio alone. Analysts say the fight now shifts from how fast a campus can connect to who pays.

Jeff Young, Latitude Media · Sebastian Moss, DCD · Nov 4, 2026
NEWS

Freeport will more than double Bagdad copper on autonomous trucks after a $4.5B brownfield expansion.

Freeport-McMoRan's board approved a $4.5B brownfield expansion at Bagdad, Arizona, aiming to more than double mining and milling rates to over 400M lb of copper a year by mid-2030. The mine has run a fully autonomous haulage fleet since 2025, and the company claims more than 4,000 construction jobs. Copper for the grid and AI buildout is coming from a mine that has operated since 1945.

Atoms Not Bits on X · Freeport-McMoRan · Nov 4, 2026
NEWS

A geography ban on foreign grid gear collides with a transformer market that already cannot meet demand.

Stakeholder comments on EO 14421, issued Aug 26, urge DOE to judge software and remote-access risk by function rather than country of origin before rules due Dec 24. Wood Mackenzie and RMI flag that transformers are already short and that bulk-power imports run more than $22B to $30B a year. Securing the grid this way runs into a market that cannot buy enough equipment as it is.

Herman K. Trabish, Utility Dive · Nov 4, 2026