In 2012, Telvent Canada, a maker of control software used in the smart grid, was hacked by intruders linked to the Chinese military, who accessed project files for the SCADA system the company produced—a system installed in oil and gas pipelines in the United States as well as in water systems. Telvent used the project files to manage the systems of customers. Though the company never indicated whether the attackers modified the project files, the breach demonstrated how easily an attacker might target oil and gas pipelines by infecting the project files of a company like Telvent.
