Eight years ago computer hackers linked, according to intelligence sources, to China and Russia they were able to hack the control system of the British Sellafield nuclear power plant. The news appears today in an investigation by the English newspaper Guardian which accuses those responsible of having covered up for almost a decade. The hacking, according to the newspaper, was discovered in 2015with the identification of malware (malicious software, ndr) installed in the computer system in the control panel. A spokesperson for the station he glossed over the revelationlimiting himself to stating that those responsible for the plant take the dossier of the crimes “extremely seriously”. cyber-security” and who have started “a path of significant strengthening” of protections “over the last 10 years” to respond “to the challenges of the modern world“: with improvements that include “the isolation of security systems” emergency of the power station with respect to “the computer system”.
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Sellafield is a former atomic power plant between the oldest in the United Kingdom, and is located in the north of the country. For some time it has been used exclusively as a site for lo disposal of nuclear waste, operation considered high risk. The intelligence sources cited by the newspaper do in any case they show alarm and they suspect that hackers, spies and “foreign” countries may in fact have had access to for years secret materials (defined as “of the highest confidential level”) relating to the activities of a site theoretically off limits.
The government of Rishi Sunak, through a spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy, has meanwhile warned that the matter will be investigated further. “We expect the highest standards of protection and safety even in former dismantled nuclear sites,” warned the spokesperson, while underlining how the independent British authority regulator of the sector ruled out that “public safety was compromised in Sellafield”. “Many issues have historical roots on which regulators have long been working with those responsible at Sellafield to ensure that all necessary improvements are implemented,” he also noted. The news was made known as the COP28 climate conference, underway in Dubai, takes place the nuclear option relaunched.
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