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South Korea Says Nuclear Reactors Safe After Cyberattacks
wiredmikey writes South Korea on Thursday ruled out the possibility that recent cyber-attacks on nuclear power operator Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co (KHNP) could cause a malfunction at any of the country's 23 atomic reactors. Earlier this week, South Korea heightened security in the wake of the leaks, with the defense ministry's cyber warfare unit increasing its watch-level against attacks from North Korean and other hackers. On Monday, KHNP launched a two-day drill, testing its ability to thwart a cyber attack.
Lets just air-gap those systems -- unless someone can explain why we need to make a nuclear reactor accessible from the Internet.
Haven't you heard? We've always been at war with East Asia.
Or we could just make sure the reactors we have are not connected to the Internet.
Of course not. The Facebook, porn, and shopping, for the most part. Oh, and cat videos.
Lets be real. Seoul has more conventional weaponry pointed at it than any city in the world. DPRK doesn't need nukes to turn their southern neighbor's most famous and most important city into a crater.
Realistically, no US President will overtly do a thing about North Korea. It has served China as a distraction and a buffer zone, and China ultimately will step in and claim NK as under their protection, sending in PLA troops like the USSR sent in Russian tanks if one of their puppets ran into trouble.
However, this doesn't mean surrender to them. Let them make all the threats they want to, and ignore them, just like you do the Goatse troll on Slashdot.
I'm pretty sure you don't understand what the Republican platform really is.
1. Find out what the Democrats want to do.
2. Denounce and oppose it.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Of course not. The Facebook, porn, and shopping, for the most part. Oh, and cat videos.
Plus, nothing ever got done before the intertoobz. It was impossible.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Why the fuck does everyone assume that cyber attack automatically means internet connection? Stuxnet hit the airgapped Iranian nuclear facilities via USB drives.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Most currently active reactors were designed, built and certified in the sixties and seventies. All systems in those plants are 60's or 70's electronics. Most won't even have something as modern as a pdp-8 to control stuff. Go watch the China Syndrome if you need a reminder.
Interfacing 40 year old control electronics to modern computers is more than a 'airgap'. It's more like your kid trying to explain GTA4 to a stone age caveman without a computer present.
there is always a next time for hackers, and they learn each time they get in. moral: disconnect from the web. VT102 terminals would make a dandy airgap, but they won't run the manglement crap.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
That didn't help Iran with Suxnet any. Their reactor WAS walled off, but a USB stick made the whole thing fall down.
Coming after the Stuxnet experience and the recent hack of a steel mill in Germany, which forced an emergency shutdown of the furnace, with 'heavy damage', the complacent assertion that no cyber attack could cause a reactor malfunction just seems witless. Of course these reactors are susceptible to getting hacked, the main obstacle is the relative obscurity of the control systems and the reality that there are multiple different designs in service, so that a wide ranging attack is very complicated. By the same token, the diversity of targets makes the defense much more difficult, no 'one size fits all' protocol is likely to be effective.
The hope may be that hacking a nuclear plant might be seen as an act of war, so not something most states would pursue, but the proliferation of devices makes it easier to create a hard to attribute hack. There is plenty of ill will around as well, so this is likely to be just the first such attack post Stuxnet.
Most currently active reactors were designed, built and certified in the sixties and seventies. All systems in those plants are 60's or 70's electronics. Most won't even have something as modern as a pdp-8 to control stuff. Go watch the China Syndrome if you need a reminder.
Having worked in the field, I need to call bullshit on this. Umm, yeah, the China Syndrome was fiction . And yes, while many active reactors were designed, built, and initially certified (FTFW) in the 60's and 70's, they have all undertaken numerous upgrades and safety improvements since.
Hollywood and Reality are two different things (hard to tell in the U.S., but it's true!). Nuclear operators have to work very damned hard and jump through a lot of hoops to demonstrate that their plants are safe to operate. Dealing with FUD dispensed by people who think they know it all because they watched it in a movie is the reason nuclear power is so expensive relative to other alternatives. But you can spout your ignorance some more if you would like; it's a free country I'm told.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Well since you are familiar with this stuff maybe you can inform us a little. Are these things really vulnerable to hacking? I mean over a network of course, anything can be hacked if you have physical access.
It wasn't a reactor. It was a fuel production plant. It's likely that their reactors are walled off to a greater extent.
I don't get why these critical assets are hooked to the internet.
They aren't. Of course, one might assume they are based on the article's title.
I'm not worried about some internet group getting into the systems remotely. A Stuxnet-type attack is definitely possible, but smart protocols (no unauthorized electronics, thumb drives, etc. on site) will make this very hard. Someone will eventually goof up, but even then there are so many overrides that executing a safe shutdown is possible even if the control systems are hacked.
I think a physical on-site attack is far more probable and worrisome (terrorists with guns taking control of a plant). There is a lot of security around U.S. plants these days, but a whole lot of complacency has built up since 9/11 and a few thousand days of nothing happening takes a toll. 20 well-armed jihadis ready to give their all for Allah and their 72 virgins could probably get into a plant. What they could do from there, who knows. Simply getting into a containment and draining a reactor pool would be pretty bad if there was a significant amount of fuel stored (which is the case in a lot of old plants) but containable. They would have to figure out how to shut down and/or disable a lot of safety controls to do anything serious. The plant itself would fight them pretty hard. If they got physical access to the containment and tried to blow up stuff, could be bad but likely containable. PWRs have systems to cope with large break loss-of-coolant accidents, which is pretty much a massive steam explosion and loss of core cooling, as bad as things get.
I honestly don't think terrorists could do anything that would cause anything worse than contained damage and contamination, nothing that would harm the neighbors. However, given the FUD already circulating about nuclear power (yeah, I'm looking at you Mr. Burne) I think it would be enough for them to just take the plant and then sit around drinking coffee. Even if they did no damage at all to the plant, got mowed down by the good guys in 10 minutes, the simple act would have the world shitting bricks. And that is what terrorism is all about, stirring up unaccountable fear.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Wtf stupid phone doesn't let me paste the link, but Google will find it to.
Correction
1: Find out what the Democrats want to do
2: Do the same
Well, yeah, but not before denouncing it.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
great website and it is very helpful for us happy new year sms
You mean like the U.S.'s domestic oil production that Bush couldn't pursue because environmentalists couldn't bear the impact it would have on their cause?
Oh wait, somehow it's OK now because their own guy is in office?
If you were paying attention, these Environmental Strawmen you are railing against are just as pissed at th e current occupant as they were at President Cheney.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Hmm, three of my posts on different stories all modded down within minutes, including this one on a relatively old story well past the date when most readers have moved on. It appears that I've annoyed someone who is very petty and has decided to list my comments then downmod them. Is that person going to be a childish coward or own up?
true. I don't think they have gotten to the point of actually building reactors beyond Bushehr and Isfahan, and both of those are mostly foreign built (by Russia and China respectively).