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As Venezuela endured one of its worst blackouts in recent memory this week, the government repeatedly claimed the widespread outage of power, phone and internet was due to a foreign cyberattack attempting to unseat its president. While the reality is that Venezuela’s blackout was most likely due to chronic underfunding of its electrical infrastructure and deferred maintenance, the idea of a foreign nation state manipulating an adversary’s power grid to force a governmental transition is very real.

In 2015 I explored the concept of “cyber first strike” in which governments would increasingly turn to cyberwarfare either on its own or as part of hybrid warfare to weaken an adversary prior to conventional invasion or to forcibly and deniably effect a transition in a foreign government.

Interrupting power and water supplies, disrupting traffic patterns, slowing or interfering with internet access, causing smart homes to go haywire and even remotely triggering meltdowns at nuclear power plants were all topics increasingly being discussed in the national security community at the time as legitimate and legal tactics to undermine a foreign state.

In the case of Venezuela, the idea of a government like the United States remotely interfering with its power grid is actually quite realistic. Remote cyber operations rarely require a significant ground presence, making them the ideal deniable influence operation. Given the U.S. government's longstanding concern with Venezuela’s government, it is likely that the U.S. already maintains a deep presence within the country's national infrastructure grid, making it relatively straightforward to interfere with grid operations. The country’s outdated internet and power infrastructure present few formidable challenges to such operations and make it relatively easy to remove any traces of foreign intervention.

Widespread power and connectivity outages like the one Venezuela experienced last week are also straight from the modern cyber playbook. Cutting power at rush hour, ensuring maximal impact on civilian society and plenty of mediagenic post-apocalyptic imagery, fits squarely into the mold of a traditional influence operation. Timing such an outage to occur at a moment of societal upheaval in a way that delegitimizes the current government exactly as a government-in-waiting has presented itself as a ready alternative is actually one of the tactics outlined in my 2015 summary.

On the other hand, outages are commonplace in Venezuela due to years of grid mismanagement. The country’s power grid does not need the help of the NSA to experience yet another shutdown. Indeed, last week’s outage was far more likely to have been just the natural result of poorly maintained generation and distribution equipment than to have been a targeted U.S. cyberattack.

Yet, this is precisely why cyberwarfare is so powerful as an influence tool. Most countries, including the U.S., have experienced concerns over their aging and increasingly overloaded utilities infrastructure. A power plant shutting down due to a malfunctioning piece of equipment or an overloaded transmission line failing are more likely to be chalked up to underinvestment than to a foreign cyberattack. A failed power line sparking a massive wildfire would be dismissed as poor preventive maintenance rather than deliberate foreign sabotage.

Influence operations are designed to silently nudge a country towards a particular outcome. Aging utilities infrastructures offer a perfect vehicle for such operations, since the blame for grid failures typically falls upon government officials for failing to adequately oversee that infrastructure, even when it is owned and maintained by private companies. Cyberattacks against utilities have the ability to disrupt all facets of modern life and generate mediagenic imagery without undue risk to the initiating country, making them an almost perfect weapon.

Putting this all together, it is extremely likely that this past week’s blackout in Venezuela was the simple result of the country’s own infrastructure problems rather than a targeted cyber action by the United States designed to oust President Maduro. Yet, the inability to definitively discount U.S. or other foreign intervention, whether deliberate or accidental, demonstrates the incredible power of using cyberattacks to target utilities. Such outages can quickly turn a population against its government while making it almost impossible to definitively prove foreign intervention.

In the end, regardless of what actually happened this past week in Venezuela, it is likely that cyber-based infrastructure attacks will continue to grow as a weapon of modern warfare.</s>A cyber-attack is likely the reason for the major blackout that left most of Venezuela in darkness, a Maduro government official said, hinting that the US may be involved in the offensive.

As Venezuela is still reeling from a nationwide blackout, Nicolas Maduro’s government says the emergency was the result of an external influence. The major power outage was likely prompted by a cyber-attack against the Guri hydroelectric plant which produces 80% of the country’s electricity, Jorge Rodriguez, Venezuela’s communication and information minister said on Friday, according to local media.

The official went on to hint that US Senator and fierce anti-Maduro campaigner Marco Rubio may be linked to the offensive. Rodriguez found it suspicious that shortly after the failure Rubio shared specific information on Twitter about the emergency that even local authorities were not aware of at that time.

Branding the country-wide power outage “the most brutal attack on the Venezuelan people in 200 years,” the minister promised to file a complaint to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

President Nicolas Maduro earlier also raised suspicions of Washington standing behind the power outage as he accused the US of waging the “electricity war.” The country’s electric energy minister, for his part, said that “deliberate sabotage” on behalf of the US-backed opposition was the reason.

Caracas and a number of other Venezuela’s cities were plunged into darkness on Thursday. The power outage shut the capital’s subway and left principal roads gridlocked as traffic lights were put out of order. The country’s largest international airport was also left without power. While power started to return to some parts of Caracas officials are so far unable to fully restore the supply.

The blackout caught Venezuela amid a full-fledged political crisis as the country is split between the supporters of President Maduro and the opposition leader Juan Guaido. The latter – who enjoys the support of the US as well as most of the EU and Latin American countries – proclaimed himself an interim president back in January. In February, US President Donald Trump said he does not exclude military intervention in the conflict torn-country. Russia, China, Turkey, Iran and a number of other states have warned against meddling into Venezuela’s internal affairs.

Like this story? Share it with a friend!</s>Electrical systems in Venezuela have been targeted by another cyberattack, President Nicholas Maduro has said. Caracas has accused the US of “sabotage”, while US officials blame local corruption and mismanagement for the blackout.

After a failure at the Guri hydroelectric power plant left much of the country without power on Thursday night, Venezuelan authorities managed to restore power to “many parts” of the country. However, the country’s grid took another hammering on Saturday, with many of the restored systems knocked out once again, the country’s embattled president said.

Maduro said the systems had been nearly 70 percent restored when “we received another attack, of a cybernetic nature, at midday… that disturbed the reconnection process and knocked out everything that had been achieved until noon.”

Additionally, “one of the sources of generation that was working perfectly,” was also sabotaged, he added, accusing domestic “infiltrators of attacking the electric company from the inside.”

Authorities are now trying to restore the systems “manually,” while struggling to “diagnose why the computerized” systems failed on such a massive scale.

Earlier, unconfirmed reports suggested that 95 percent of the crisis-stricken country was again without power, after Sidor Substation in Bolivar state had allegedly exploded, spewing clouds of black smoke into the sky. The substation had reportedly been sustaining the country’s power supply since the Guri plant –which produces 80 percent of the country’s power– failed.

The Venezuelan government blamed Thursday’s blackout on US “sabotage.” President Nicolas Maduro accused Washington of waging an “electricity war” on the socialist state, while communication and information minister Jorge Rodriguez blamed the outage on a US-orchestrated cyberattack.

Meanwhile US officials, including a vocal proponent of regime change in Venezuela, Senator Marco Rubio, blamed the socialist policies of Maduro’s government for letting the country’s infrastructure crumble to breaking point. The Florida Republican claimed that the country’s union of electricity workers had predicted the blackout, accused Maduro of pocketing money that could have been used for repairs, and joked that he “must have pressed the wrong thing on the ‘electronic attack’ app I downloaded from Apple.”

Like this story? Share it with a friend!</s>Pedestrians walk to their destination amid the country’s worst-ever power outage, in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, March 8, 2019. President Nicolas Maduro ordered schools and all government entities closed and told businesses not to open to facilitate work crews trying to restore power. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Pedestrians walk to their destination amid the country’s worst-ever power outage, in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, March 8, 2019. President Nicolas Maduro ordered schools and all government entities closed and told businesses not to open to facilitate work crews trying to restore power. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s worst power and communications outage on Friday deepened a sense of isolation and decay, endangering hospital patients, forcing schools and businesses to close and cutting people off from their families, friends and the outside world.

While electricity returned to some parts of Caracas nearly 24 hours after lights, phones and the internet stopped working, several other populous cities remained in the dark as evening approached.

“I’m desperate,” said Maria Isabel Garcia, a 39-year-old office worker who hadn’t been able to buy food for her three young children because she wasn’t able to take money out of the bank on Thursday.

The blackout marked another harsh blow to a country paralyzed by turmoil as the power struggle between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido stretches into its second month and economic hardship grows.

Venezuelans have grown begrudgingly accustomed to power cuts, but nothing like the one that hit during rush hour Thursday evening, sending thousands of people on long nighttime treks in the dark to their homes. It reached virtually every part of the oil-rich country of 31 million, which was once Latin America’ wealthiest but is now beset by shortages and hyperinflation projected by the International Monetary Fund to reach a staggering 10 million percent this year, compelling about one-tenth of its population to flee in recent years.

Venezuelans struggling to put food on the table worried that the few items in their fridges would spoil. One hospital advocate reported there were at least two confirmed deaths due to the outage: A baby in a neonatal unit and a patient at the children’s hospital. Venezuelans with chronic conditions liked diabetes searched for ice to preserve their limited supplies of medicines.

The blackout promptly became a point of dispute between Maduro, who blamed sabotage engineered by the “imperialist United States,” and U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido, who said state corruption and mismanagement that have left the electrical grid in shambles were the cause. Guaido, the leader of Venezuela’s National Assembly, returned from a Latin American tour to Venezuela on Monday in order to escalate his campaign to topple Maduro and hold elections and called for new protests on Saturday.

Many of the more than 3.4 million Venezuelans who have fled thus far left with valuable skills— including energy expertise — and the government’s allegations of a saboteurs’ plot was met with skepticism by many in Caracas.

“They always say the same thing,” said Carlos Ramos, an economist who was waiting to see a doctor outside the darkened lobby of a Caracas hospital.

Elsewhere in the city, Dr. Luz Ardila Suarez, a gynecologist, said many staffers at the hospital where she works were still on the job Friday morning because they couldn’t get home the previous night. Like other hospitals, she said the facility was relying on generators but only had enough fuel for another day or two and that she was especially worried about patients in intensive care.

“There are patients who are connected to machines,” Suarez said. “And of course, there’s no water.”

Dr. Julio Castro, one of the leaders of the non-profit Doctors for Health, reported on Twitter that about half of 23 hospitals surveyed were grappling with failing generators.

Another health advocacy group, CODEVIDA, reported that thousands of dialysis patients were going without treatment as a result of the outage. Advocates were particularly concerned about patients who rely on respirators and the lack of air conditioning in several hospitals, which is needed to keep facilities cool in order to prevent the spread of bacteria.

By early Friday afternoon, residents and pro-government state broadcaster VTV reported that power was returning to parts of Caracas. Traffic lights in several neighborhoods were back on, while at one office building the electricity flickered to life and then turned off.

Venezuela’s economic woes are likely to increase as U.S. sanctions against its oil industry take their toll, part of an international effort to push Maduro from power. The United States and about 50 other countries back Guaido’s contention that he is the interim president of Venezuela, and that Maduro’s re-election last year was illegitimate because major opposition leaders were barred from running.

Guaido and Maduro, whose chief backers are Russia and Cuba, planned rival demonstrations as they seek to energize supporters.

“The electricity war declared and directed by the imperialist United States against our people will be overcome!” Maduro wrote on Twitter.

The state-owned electricity operator blamed the outage on an act of “sabotage” at the Guri Dam, one of the world’s largest hydroelectric stations and the cornerstone of Venezuela’s electrical grid. Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez described it as a cyberattack on the dam’s operating system which signals to machines whether to boost or diminish power based on capacity and demand.

“By attacking the automated control system, the machines stop as a protective mechanism,” he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said only Maduro was to blame.

“Maduro’s policies bring nothing but darkness,” Pompeo wrote on social media. “No food. No medicine. Now, no power. Next, no Maduro.”

High-ranking officials have been accused in U.S. court proceedings of looting government money earmarked for the electrical system. Venezuelan authorities routinely accuse the opposition of sabotaging infrastructure, though rarely provide evidence.

The government keeps home power bills exceptionally low — just a couple dollars a month — relying heavily on subsidies from the Maduro administration, which is under increasing financial duress.

Venezuela’s normally hyper-active social media was muted during the blackout. Those who managed to get a signal used the hashtag #SinLuz — without light in English — to share images of cities resembling ghost towns.

One user posted a video of a nurse manually pumping air into the lungs of an infant. Others posted photos of long lines of cars at gas stations in hopes of getting fuel. A man anguished that he’d gone 17 hours without hearing from his mother.

Netblocks, a non-government group based in Europe that monitors internet censorship, said online connectivity data indicates the outage is the largest on recent record in Latin America.

As the blackout wore on, the patience of many Venezuelans was wearing thin. On both Thursday and Friday evening, residents in still darkened neighborhoods banged pots and pans in protest. Business owners griped over losses certain to compound an already bleak economic outlook.

“I can’t work. I can’t do anything,” said Veronica Padrino, a lawyer who attended a women’s day rally in Caracas. “I can’t communicate with my family.”

___

Associated Press writers Jorge Rueda in Caracas, and Christine Armario and Joshua Goodman in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.</s>Venezuelan Minister of Communication and Information Jorge Rodriguez said on Saturday that the country’s near-total blackout has been caused by a cyberattack against the Guri hydroelectric power plant, which provides over 70 percent of the nation's electricity. Rodrigues claimed the outage could have been staged by the US.

“They [the US] carried out a cyberattack on [Guri’s] automatic control system. Everything shows that it is a multiformat and violent attack against all of Venezuela", Rodriguez told the country’s state television network.

READ MORE: Pompeo on Venezuela Blackout: 'Maduro’s Policies Bring Nothing but Darkness'

He said that a delegation headed by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet will visit Venezuela in the next few days and that Caracas “will show her the proof about these criminals”.

“We will submit a complaint to her in order for the world to respect human rights in Venezuela”, Rodriguez underscored, vowing that the electric power supply will be restored in the coming hours throughout the country.

His statement comes after Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza lashed out on Friday at politicians close to US President Donald Trump for "celebrating" and “enjoying the reckless distortion [of facts]” in the wake of electricity supply issues facing Venezuela.

READ MORE: Venezuelan President Maduro Says 'Electric Energy War' Declared by US to Fail

On Thursday, the Venezuelan national electricity supplier reported that Guri had faced deliberate sabotage, with a power outage subsequently registered in 21 out of Venezuela’s 23 states. President Nicolas Maduro accused the US of waging an "electricity war" against Venezuela.</s>CARACAS, Venezuela — Much of Venezuela remained engulfed by darkness early Friday amid one of the largest power outages in years, a problem President Nicolas Maduro's government quickly blamed on "sabotage" at a hydroelectric dam.

The blackout hit 22 of 23 states, according to the Associated Press. It struck the capital Caracas, which until now has been spared the worst of a collapse in the nation's grid, at the peak of rush hour.

Venezuela's socialist government blasted the outage as an "electrical war" directed by the United States.

Blackouts are frequent in Venezuela, where the economy is collapsing under hyperinflation, with chronic shortages of food and medicine and a mass emigration of more than 3 million citizens.

Critics say corruption and under investment have left the country's power grid unable to function, while Maduro says the problems are intentionally created by political adversaries.

Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez said right-wing extremists intent on causing pandemonium in Venezuela and taking orders from Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio were behind the blackout, although he offered no proof.

State-owned electricity operator Corpoelec blamed the outage on act of "sabotage" at the Guri Dam, one of the world's largest hydroelectric stations and the cornerstone of Venezuela's electrical grid. Rodriguez described it as a "cyber" attack intended to derail the whole system. He said electricity in Venezuela's eastern region had been restored within two hours.

Thousands of commuters flooded into the streets because subway service was stopped. A snarl of cars jammed the streets amid confusion generated by blackened stoplights. Others had to walk long distances to get home.

"The person responsible for this is named Nicolas Maduro," said Pedro Fernandez, 44, a systems engineer in the Altamira neighborhood of Caracas, on his way by foot to the other side of town. "This is just the tip of the iceberg given all the things we're suffering."

The outage comes as Venezuela is in the throes of a political struggle between Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaidó, the head of congress who declared himself the nation's rightful president in January and is recognized by the United States and about 50 nations.

Guaidó took to Twitter to blast Maduro for the outage.

"How do you tell a mom who needs to cook, an ill person who depends on a machine, a worker who should be laboring that we are in a powerful country without electricity?" he wrote.

Venezuela's electrical system was once the envy of Latin America but it has fallen into a state of disrepair after years of poor maintenance and mismanagement. High-ranking officials have been accused in U.S. court proceedings of looting government money earmarked for the electrical system.</s>When US President Donald Trump and other senior White House officials earlier bragged that "all options are on the table" for Washington's regime change objective in Venezuela, it has to be assumed now that one of those options included a devastating cyber sabotage of the country's power infrastructure.

For its part, the government of President Nicolas Maduro is convinced that the US is waging an "electrical war" and is behind the latest power outages. Washington and its anointed Venezuelan opposition figure Juan Guaido claim that the disruption is the result of "incompetent management" of the country by Maduro's socialist government.

However, the scale of the latest blackouts indicate an unprecedented damage to the country's power infrastructure.

At first, the Venezuelan government was promising that electricity supplies would be resumed "within hours" after the initial blackout which happened Thursday. That resumption has apparently not been achieved yet by the authorities — several days later.

READ MORE: Cabinet Minister Says Venezuela's Blackout May Be Caused by US Cyberattack

The entire country appears to have been paralyzed. The public transport systems of trains and airports have been shut down. Without electricity to operate fuel pumps, cars and other traffic have also ground to a halt.

At night, Caracas the capital and other major cities are hooded in darkness without house and street lights and other basic services.

Hospitals are reportedly struggling to maintain life-saving operations, such as ventilators for newborn babies.

It is no exaggeration to say that lives will be lost as a result of the far-reaching power cuts.

The nationwide scale and duration of the outages strongly suggest that the disruption has been caused by deliberate sabotage — as the Venezuelan government says.

There doesn't appear to be any hard proof of how the purported sabotage was carried out. But a reasonable conjecture would be that some form of cyber attack was launched on the Venezuelan power grid.

That might explain why it is taking so long to isolate and rectify the problem.

Washington's rapid reaction to the latest power calamity is suggestive of a premeditated act. Politicians like Senator Marco Rubio who has been leading the regime-change campaign did not skip a beat to immediately proclaim the outages as "evidence" of the Maduro government's mismanagement and illegitimacy. This line was also quickly chimed by the US-backed opposition figure Guaido, whom Washington has arbitrarily and illegally designated as the "recognized president" of Venezuela.

READ MORE: US and Opposition Want to Unleash an 'Oil War' to Invade Venezuela — Maduro

Guaido further hinted at the colossal blackmail tactic being played.

He declared that "the lights will come back on when the usurper Maduro is overthrown".

There are several other reasons which point to the US using a "stealth war" strategy.

We know that the Americans have serious cyber-attack capabilities.

Only a few years back, the US launched a mass attack on Iranian infrastructure with the so-called Stuxnet computer virus. At the time, the Americans even publicly boasted about perpetrating that sabotage.

The irony is that the US and its NATO allies continually accuse Russia of attempting to knock out civil infrastructure in their countries.

Such cyber stealth is part of the supposed "hybrid war" that Moscow has developed to target "Western democracy". Lurid claims have often been made in Western news media about Russia aiming to decimate power and transport systems through computer hacking.

Moscow has denied all such claims as provocative slander. No doubt Russia has developed its own cyber weapons, as many other states have, as part of a modern arsenal against would-be enemies. But Western allegations against Moscow are more likely to be what the psychologists call "projection of their guilt" in having the capability and actually deploying cyber weapons. Venezuela would seem to a present case in point.

Venezuela has well-equipped and robust armed forces. Those forces have shown their mettle recently by remaining loyal to the government and nation's constitution, despite immense intimidation and bribes issued by Washington and its opposition surrogates. The Trump administration has no doubt realized that any military adventurism in South America would be met with a fierce and potentially humiliating response.

Secondly, Russia last week announced that it would not tolerate any American military intervention in Venezuela, with whom Moscow is a firm ally.

The solid military defense of Venezuela, the steadfastness of its army and the majority of civilians in support of Maduro, as well as its Russian ally, probably persuaded the Americans to take the stealth war option — in the form of sabotaging the country's power grid.

READ MORE: Stalled Coup: US' Allies May Soon Regret They Rushed to Embrace Guaido – Journo

The added advantage of this option is "plausible deniability" for the Americans. A military attack on Venezuela could have incurred major political and legal problems as the world would have witnessed a gratuitous aggression.

By crippling the country through cyber attacks on its civilian power supply, Washington can use deception to hide its dirty hands. Better still, it can lay the blame on "mismanagement" by the Maduro government.

By contrast, the abstract method of stealth aggression will throw many Venezuelans into doubt about who just is the perpetrator. They may even be convinced by Washington and its orchestrated opposition puppet, and hence blame President Maduro for their latest travails.

Stealth war may be hard to discern. Nevertheless, it is still a monstrously criminal act of aggression.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik</s>: Though some parts of Venezuela's power grid have reportedly begun to come back online after the country was plunged into nation-wide darkness beginning Thursday evening, the mass blackout crisis continues, which Caracas has blamed on US-orchestrated saboteurs.

To prevent further "sabotage" Venezuela's Defense Ministry has vowed in an official statement via state TV social media channels to deploy armed forces to protect the national electricity system for the duration of the power outage.

“All the security agencies, civil protection and the nation’s integral defense system are deployed to protect and help the people across the country,” a statement said, via Bloomberg. This as official accusations against Washington for conducting what Maduro previously called a US "electricity war" have become even more strident.

The defense ministry previously vowed to put more security patrols on the streets after dark, as already high-crime areas of Caracas are now considered no-go zones as a result of the blackout.

Meanwhile the problems now appear to be compounding as Venezuela's already aging and mismanaged infrastructure continues to collapse in a domino effect of problems precipitated by the electrical grid mass failure.

The AP summarizing the worsening crisis, now hitting many sectors:

Payments can't be processed, resulting in cash-only transactions, which is problematic considering the bolivar is worth nothing:

Venezuela's worst ever power outage in recent history has continued since Thursday, as video and photos continue to come out of the cash and resource strapped country showing entire cities blanketed in darkness.

Stretching into day two of the mass electrical shutdown, 23 out of 24 states remain in darkness, according to the AP, in a prolonged situation now reaching crisis levels given reports that hospitals are struggling to keep back-up generators running and many businesses are forced to remain shuttered.

The nation-wide blackout quickly turned into a blame-game over who's at fault, with many in the opposition blaming the Maduro government's mismanagement and notorious corruption, and with pro-regime voices blaming right-wing saboteurs taking orders from the United States.

Caracas has even gone so far to point the finger at Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who only yesterday as part of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing said that the US should promote “widespread unrest” in order to bring down the Maduro government. Though offering no specific proof Caracas officials accused the US and opposition activists of causing "pandemonium" for several days, culminating in the blackout.

President Nicolas Maduro gave brief public acknowledgement of the outage on Twitter, saying, “The electricity war declared and directed by the imperialist United States against our people will be overcome!” and added, “No one can defeat the people of Bolivar and Chavez. Maximum unity patriots!”

According to the AP the blackout struck during Thursday evening's peak rush hour period, and after extending through the night Maduro reportedly ordered all schools and government locations closed. Businesses were further ordered closed in order allow work crews easy access to the failing power infrastructure.

Power in some parts of Caracas has reportedly begun to return, though remains off or intermittent in may other parts of the country. Some parts of the country reportedly had power restored within hours, but others remain in darkness now 24 hours later.

According to VOA news Venezuelan officials "said the hydroelectric station at the Guri Dam, one of the world’s largest, had been sabotaged, but offered no evidence."

And predictably, US officials capitalized on the Venezuelans' plight, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo taking to Twitter to say: “Maduro’s policies bring nothing but darkness,” and “No food. No medicine. Now, no power. Next, no Maduro.”

Pompeo also expressly denied pro-Maduro officials' accusations that the United States and its regional allies were engaged in acts of sabotage aimed at regime change.

According to the AP, limited social media posts coming out of Venezuela by those who still had cell phone charges and signals included images of darkened cities that looked like "ghost towns".

And crucially, the AP continued, "Netblocks, a non-government group based in Europe that monitors internet censorship, said online connectivity data indicates the outage is the largest in recent record in Latin America."

The extreme nature of the blackout impacting cell and internet communications also continued in to Friday: "The observatory warned Friday that some of the remaining networks were starting to fall offline as generators and backups began depleting and cell towers shut down," the AP reported.

However, 23 hours in to the mass outage there were signs of electricity coming back to some regions of the country, with Net Blocks still reporting "new outages slowing the recovery" and internet connectivity back up to 20%, down from just 2% nationwide earlier in the day Friday.
A nationwide power blackout enters its second day in Venezuela. Information Minister Jorge Rodríguez and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López claim the country appears to be the victim of a cyberattack intended to "derail the whole system". Venezuelan National Assembly-declared Acting President Juan Guaidó stated that "state corruption and mismanagement (...) have left the electrical grid in shambles".