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Now this is a scary though, with the digitisation of the old analogue power stations and the accidental cross-over of networks (as we’ve seen before) people could soon be hacking nuclear power station control systems..<\/p>\n
he nuclear power industry is going digital — replacing mechanical systems with more efficient, networked computer-controls.<\/p>\n
If that makes you nervous in a season-four-of-24 kinda way, you’re not alone. Last week, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted unanimously to add cyber security requirements to federal regulations governing nuclear power plant security. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Scary eh? Something straight out of a sci-fi movie.<\/p>\n
The main concern is that the next generation of digital “instrumentation and control”, or I&C, systems could all-too-easily wind up linked to company business networks, and, through them, the internet — all but guaranteeing they’d be hacked.<\/p>\n
The risk was illustrated in 2003, when the Slammer worm penetrated a network at the idled Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio, disabling a safety monitoring computer for nearly five hours. The worm snuck in through the energy company’s corporate network, over an unmonitored connection from a contractor’s private LAN.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I think the whole world should be pretty nervous, don’t you?<\/p>\n
At an NRC security briefing last March, commissioner (and Los Alamos veteran) Peter Lyons commented he was “very, very nervous” about such interconnections. The exchange that follows shows how nervous nuclear-types are about sounding nervous. From the transcript<\/a> [PDF] <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Oh dear..<\/p>\n
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