UK utility services provider Fulcrum alerts market to cyber incident

UK multi-utility infrastructure and services provider Fulcrum notified the market Sept. 27 of a cyber security incident on its network after detecting unauthorized activity.

In July the UK's National Cyber Security Centre issued a heightened threat warning in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, advising companies to prepare for "the long haul" when bolstering system security.

Fulcrum said the majority of its field operations were able to continue during the unauthorized incident but "access to and visibility of managerial and system information has been limited and work is ongoing to ameliorate this and assess the impact on the business, if any."

No data was breached or accessed during the incident, which had ceased and the group's IT systems securely reinstated, it said. There was no information on the source of the breach.

"On becoming aware of the activity, Fulcrum immediately implemented its incident response plan, engaged its external IT specialists and took precautionary measures, including initiating outages of its IT infrastructure," it said.

The company said it was aware of similar cyber security incidents affecting other businesses recently "and the Board will provide a further update as and when appropriate."

Fulcrum is headquartered in Sheffield. It designs, builds, owns, and maintains utility infrastructure across power, gas and water sectors for industrial and commercial businesses, including high voltage electrical infrastructure up to 132-kV, solar and wind farm connections and gas infrastructure.

Platts assessed the price of UK month-ahead baseload power at GBP276.70/MWh Sept. 26, down 43% since the start of the month, S&P Global Commodity Insights data showed.

S&P Global's Energy Security Sentinel shows there have been 46 security incidents and attacks on energy and commodities infrastructure in the conflict zone since the Ukraine war began.