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German Nuclear Plant Infected With Computer Virus (reuters.com)
archatheist shares a Reuters report: A nuclear power plant in Germany has been found to be infected with computer viruses, but they appear not to have posed a threat to the facility's operations because it is isolated from the Internet, the station's operator said on Tuesday. The Gundremmingen plant, located about 120 km (75 miles) northwest of Munich, is run by the German utility RWE. The viruses, which include "W32.Ramnit" and "Conficker", were discovered at Gundremmingen's B unit in a computer system retrofitted in 2008 with data visualization software associated with equipment for moving nuclear fuel rods, RWE said.
I never knew mdsolar was also archatheist.
Hopefully none of the malware was none of the "jump the airgap" sort. :)
Smart move! Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Blue Screen of Death", doesn't it? Doesn't the Windows license specifically say it shouldn't be used for nuclear plants?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
From the article:
a European aircraft maker that said it cleans the cockpits of its planes every week of malware designed for Android phones. The malware spread to the planes only because factory employees were charging their phones with the USB port in the cockpit. Because the plane runs a different operating system, nothing would befall it. But it would pass the virus on to other devices that plugged into the charger.
How does that even make sense?!? What is running on the charger for it to spread the malware?
I must ask...
Were they falsifying power-plant emissions?
When will we get to the point where we all agree that the fundamental hardware and software architectures in use today (particularly any combination of Microsoft, Intel and the Internet) are fundamentally not secure. Further, they cannot be secured. To have secure systems would require scrapping TCP/IP, the x86 box architecture (particularly its lax memory and task controls) and, again, anything from the sausage factory in Redmond.
"The Internet of Things" is just a hack away from a zombie apocalypse that can't be killed.
Ransom-ware anyone?
>W32.
>Powerplant.
Incompetent imbeciles.
That is what happens when you install pirated copies of programs. You get all of the malware that the people that cracked it decided to include.
"As an example, Hypponen said he had recently spoken to a European aircraft maker that said it cleans the cockpits of its planes every week of malware designed for Android phones. The malware spread to the planes only because factory employees were charging their phones with the USB port in the cockpit.
Because the plane runs a different operating system, nothing would befall it. But it would pass the virus on to other devices that plugged into the charger."
Okay for a system to spread a virus it must execute code...
So does this mean that F_Protect have no idea what they are doing or are they just spreading FUD.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The proposition "not to have posed a threat" does not seem to follow from the combination of "found to be infected" and "isolated from the Internet".
Were the computers isolated from the control board of the nuclear power station? That's the important question.
but they appear not to have posed a threat to the facility's operations because it is isolated from the Internet, the station's operator said on Tuesday
If it is the case the the systems that run the plant are connected to the internet at all in any manner, then we've got a problem, and much more so if something is infected. However, if as TFA is suggesting the systems actually running the plant are disconnected, then this is a complete non-story, and likely is nothing more than anti-nuclear FUD.
Wasn't that security patched like 6 years ago... And not even possible on Windows 7??
This has to be the first time in my life when I see Softpedia beating Reuters to a story :))))
Kind of a dbag move from the mods to leave a "red" story from Softpedia in the submissions queue just to replace it with a Reuters article 2 days later.
It's basically the nuclear power plant equivalent of this xkcd: https://xkcd.com/932/
in other words, probably some old pc isolated from the network used for running some legacy software of a non mission critical nature was discovered to have old worms on it. "Data visualization software" could well just be something as innocent as an Excel spreadsheet.
Let me guess: they had AnnaKournikova,jpg.vbs and ILOVEYOU on there, too?
Is there anything more that has to be said?
By any chance would this 'computer Virus' only work on Microsoft Windows running on Intel based hardware?
Didn't ze Germans recently decide to rage quit the whole nuclear power-generation game entirely? So fuck it, let those systems get buried along with their spent fuel and irradiated control rods, etc.
lemme guess! windoze? Windoze! ... suckers m$!
But there is a lot of concern about security at German nuclear plants. http://m.dw.com/en/safety-chec...
these are worms, not virii. THERE ARE NO VIRII for ANY OS shipped THIS CENTURY. Stop LYING.