On: AAA warns on gas prices, North Carolina invokes emergency as hackers apologize

how much do y'all believe this was a "hacking group" and not state sponsored?

(imho it depends on how sophisticated the attack... given the typical lameness of SCADA defenses, one can't assume...)

There isn't a clear dividing line. What you have are criminal organisations who may get protection and shelter from governments in exchange for making attacks which are incidentally beneficial to that government.

Not unlike the golden age of piracy with "privateers".

the difference is that pirates clearly knew they were gambling with their lives

hackers dont traditionally think that way..

They do now. :)

Hear hoofbeats, think horses.

The skillset to compromise large enterprise networks is more readily available and more profitable than the skillset to compromise SCADA systems, and for all the flak they get, the culture at most large engineering firms in the West is extremely safety conscious. If it's not provably operating safely, it isn't. So it gets shut down.

So you all need to do is deny the link between the actual control system and lines of engineering reporting.

As far as we know the attack didn't even touch the systems connected to hardware.

For what it's worth, I realize that's the official story, but I'm somewhat skeptical based on the response and warnings we've seen.