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U.S. Plans to Tighten Nuclear Power Plant Security
CDMA_Demo writes "The 103 nuclear reactors running in USA can voluntarily agree to follow a new 15 page update to a 1996 regulatory guide. The update notes possibility of "unauthorized, undesirable, and unsafe intrusions", and recommends measures aginst such activities. It also recommends such facilities to be cut off from external networks: "Remote access...[that may pose a potential security risk]...should not be implemented". The Slammer worm in 2001 managed to bring down the network at Ohio's David-Besse nuclear plant and concerns kept growing at the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)."
You know you got owned when someone cracked your power plant and the fuel rods spell "owned" in binary.
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The fact that it's voluntary makes me a bit nervous. The fact that the suppliment was this long in coming makes me even more nervous.
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This, the week after a similar weakness* is shown on 24?
Remember to always question policy this way: WWJBD? What Would Jack Bauer Do?
That is all.
* Yes I know, it's TV.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
That MAYBE, they would've done this, oh I don't know, say in October of 2001?
But silly me, what do I know about national security. Here I still think it's better to make less enemies than more.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
That would be common sense, wouldn't it? I'm not trained in network security, but why would controll systems need to be connected to the 'net?
PS: I'm ignoring the obvious "Why are you running Windows and not some ultra-hard OpenBSD or RTOS or something".
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
You can't say nuclear That really scares me Sometimes a brain can Come in quite handy.
Please google for the string "dirty bomb".
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
What follows is the transcript of a conversation that took place between a top US defense official and his wife after watching this week's episode of Fox's popular drama 24.
Wife: It's a good thing the real nuclear power plants don't allow remote access! Man what fanciful terror alert situation will those 24 writers think of next?
Official: Uh...
I guess he won't be able to work from home in his muumuu.
My home state of Maine became the site of the first complete decomissioning of a large commercial reactor. The plant became operational in '72 ( and it had to survive a referendum to close it in '80, '82, and '87). In '95 it was shutdown many months for repairs and they discovered cracks in the steam generator tubes. The plant opened back up for less than a year I believe, they evaluated the cost to refit the plant and they decided they would have a hard time making back the investment in refitting the plant, so they shut it down permanently. They had originally intended to operate the plant at least until 2020 or 2030. Part of the huge cost was the fact that they need to store the waste onsite. Now all that is left of the plant is a semi-permanent high-level waste storage facility on a few acre footprint. Several hundred acres of the plants land are already being developed on. Several hundred more are a peninsula where the waste storage is located and the gated access make it less attractive for commercial development.
Bush wants to have a new reactor running in the US in the next 10 years. This will be the first approved since '79 and the first to come online since the mid 90's.
I was just watching a 24 hour news update, and apparently the internet boradcast of the execution of a US Secretary Heller was a coverup for an attack on a US nuclear base firewall.
This all in an attempt to use a remote control system developed for nuclear installations in case of a radiation leak or disaster.
It's no suprise... not like there wasn't a nuke detonated in the desert all those years ago. About time they wake up.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
My uncle is a security guard at a nuclear power plant. He is 59 years old and his occupation before nuclear powerlant security guard was truck driver. He is the most honest and trusworthy man you will ever meet, but he is 59 years old and had a triple bypass last year.
Delta Force operators come on an occasional announced, i.e. they know they're coming, basis to try to infiltrate. Supposedly they have succeeded every time.
Pretty freaking cool, imo.
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Africus aut Europaeus?
I even worked in IT. Here is how it works (at least at the one I worked at): all of the software that actually runs the plant is over 25 years old (and therefore does not run Windows). It runs some obscure custom shit, not that obscurity is efficient at security, but I guess it kinda helps. Yes, the computers used by the Secretaries, the Maintenance staff, the Managers, etc. all run Windows. The servers ran Red Had 7.3. This is all fluff. If this breaks or gets corrupted one of two things happens to the reactor: 1. Nothing or 2. Nothing. There are two ways the the system is electrically connected to the outside world, and both of them are through high voltage power lines, which cannot really be used to send data in to break things. If you want to break something, you need to physically be there to do it.
If you work in a nuclear power plant, you are going to continue to do everything you can think of to make it even harder for someone to sabotage the place. Physically, this includes multiple walls, gates, barricades, guns, and more to protect the containments. From a procedural standpoint, this means anyone who wants to get on-site gets ran through a database to check your history, after getting an employee escort. Anyone who wants to get into the protected area gets personally approved after a more in depth background check, and a heck of a lot of red tape.
If you are just Joe Public (no offense), you have a much higher chance of dying in a car accident so I wouldn't worry about this.
And No, I didn't RTFA, but I figured as long as my comment was more useful than the rest of them (read: references to 24), I figured this comment would be helpful.
The Main Plant Computer System at my nuke plant doesn't actually do anything but monitor system parameters. It cannot cause the plant to do anything. It's very handy, but not vital to safety at all. I'd imagine other plants are set up the same.
Solid state logic systems do run the safety systems, but there's no way to interface with them besides the physical controls that are directly connected to them.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
1. Terrorists storm a reactor and try to steal uranium or plutonium to make bombs.
Not likely. Assuming attackers could shoot their way past the beefed-up phalanx of armed guards, traffic barriers and guard towers that now surround every nuclear plant, they'd still have to fight their way into the reactor building through multiple levels of remote-activated blast doors--where access requires the right key card and palm print--to get to the spent-fuel pond, says Michael Wallace, president of Constellation Energy's generation group, which operates five nuclear reactors. The pond is where highly radioactive used fuel sits in 14-foot-long stainless steel assemblies cooling under 40 feet of water. Terrorists couldn't just grab this stuff and run because, unshielded, it gives off a lethal dose of radiation in less than a minute. To avoid exposure, terrorists would have to force workers to use a giant crane inside the reactor to load the assemblies into huge transfer casks, then open the mammoth doors of the reactor building and use another crane to lift the cask onto a waiting truck--all the while being shot at by the National Guard.
And While we are at it, How about crashing a plane into the reactor?
2. Terrorists crash a plane into a reactor, leading to overheating and a meltdown.
Even less likely. Assume that terrorists could get past tightened airport security and fight off passengers to get through new, improved cockpit doors and take control of a plane. Even then they'd have to crash the jet directly into a reactor to have any chance of breaking containment. In 2002 the Electric Power Research Institute performed a $1 million computer simulation to assess such a risk. Conclusion: A direct hit from a 450,000-pound Boeing 767 flying low to the ground at 350mph would ruin a plant's ability to make electricity but not break the reactor's cement shield. Reason: A reactor, smaller in profile than the Pentagon or World Trade Center, would not absorb the full force of the plane's impact. And, for all the force behind it, a plane, built of aluminum and titanium, has far less mass than the 20-foot-thick steel-and-concrete sarcophagus enclosing a nuclear reactor. It would be like dropping a watermelon on a fire hydrant from 100 feet.
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