That blackout was caused by a tree limb in Ohio, but it always seemed likely to me that the Blaster/Welchia worm either was a contributor or magnified the impact of the grid issues.
I worked next to a power plant that shared some network components with my employer at the time. They did an emergency shutdown minutes before we were impacted by blaster. Some of our upstream providers operating backbones in NY also were impacted and had capacity issues due to the worms. At least one of those providers had issues for days after the initial incident.
No it was caused by poor grid management at First Energy. If your high voltage lines start to sag because you don't know how to distribute your load and you don't maintain your right-of-way because all you want is profit that is what you get. Ohio is now bailing these idiots nuclear plants out on its citizen's dime, along with coal plants that should have been shut down years ago.
I worked next to a power plant that shared some network components with my employer at the time. They did an emergency shutdown minutes before we were impacted by blaster. Some of our upstream providers operating backbones in NY also were impacted and had capacity issues due to the worms. At least one of those providers had issues for days after the initial incident.