The attack on the nuclear power plant fuel system
Work nuclear power plant in the village of Gundremmingen (Gundremmingen) in Bavaria was halted after the discovery of its IT systems, computer virus.
The aim of a virus attack was an IT network, to operate the machine to unload fuel rods (FE) in the sector B of the reactor power. In addition, the station 18 USB-infected carriers is detected. The company RWE – nuclear power plant operator in Gundremmingene, informed about the incident state security service
Although the NPP representative told the newspaper Die Zeit, that the virus does not pose a special threat, the station stopped on Sunday April 24, 2016, by Tuesday. April 26 – 30, the anniversary of the Chernobyl accident – still remained closed
Targeted attack on industrial sites
One of the trend in the field of cyber crime last year is. the development of so-called targeted attacks, where malicious software and attack strategy developed for a specific object in view of its technological processes and use of iT infrastructure.
NPP Gundremmingene
a classic example of such software is the Stuxnet virus, discovered in computers at Iran, which was designed to incapacitate centrifuges to enrich uranium.
«Typical “malware
in the case of the German nuclear power plants to talk about the target attacks on nuclear facilities prematurely, since the attack was used widespread malware – utility W32.Ramnit and Conficker. W32.Ramnit program exploits a vulnerability on Windows, to take remote control of infected computers.
A computer worm Conficker has been known since 2008 and, as a rule, used to steal banking usernames and passwords, and other confidential information, it is one of the most famous and widespread malicious programs – in 2009, there were about 9-15 million computers infected by Conficker.
Mikko Hypponen (Mikko Hypponen), director of research at F-Secure, said that ordinary viruses are often randomly are on the critical infrastructure components, but as a rule, are not dangerous, if the attack on the object is not focused. He cites the example of an unnamed European aircraft manufacturer, which is a weekly cleans onboard systems constructed aircraft from viruses, which leave behind a staff of factory, charging Android-smartphone.
NPP offline
The representative of the nuclear power station Tobias Schmidt (Tobias Schmidt) has assured that the incident will have serious consequences for the process: “systems that control the nuclear reaction, using analog equipment, and therefore isolated from possible cyber attacks. They are equipped with integrated protective functionality to protect key processes from external interference. »
The apparent contradiction in the statements of representatives of the nuclear power plant can be attributed to the fact that, speaking of the control system response, they mean lowering the drive into the reactor graphite rods reducing the rate of the nuclear reaction.
it is reported that the plant iT systems do not have an internet connection, so it is clear that malware got into the system via an external storage device, which has brought to the work of one of the employees.
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