The UK's Sellafield Nuclear Power Plant has now become the most potentially dangerous industrial base in Europe. According to investigations, the nuclear power plant has been hacked by a foreign cyber hacker group.Sources told the Guardian that as early as 2015, experts discovered that spyware had been implanted in the nuclear power plant's computer network. Sellafield Nuclear Power Station is one of the largest nuclear power stations in Europe. It covers an area of 700 acres and has 1,300 buildings connected by 25 miles of roads. About 11,000 employees work in it, and a large amount of radioactive waste is stored in silos.
The plant stores spent nuclear fuel from British nuclear power stations in an effort to catch up with the United States and Russia as nuclear powers. The plant stores radioactive waste that far exceeds the amount of waste from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant before the disaster. The base houses the world's largest plutonium storage repository. In addition, there are extensive contingency planning documents hidden here for use in the event the UK is attacked by a foreign country or faces disaster.
The Guardian conducted a year-long investigation into cyber hacks, radioactive contamination and toxic workplace culture at Sellafield. Journalist Anna Isaac said: "If Sellafield is not safe, the UK is not safe and could even endanger neighboring countries. It is still unknown whether the malware first detected eight years ago has been removed." The Guardian also found that the nuclear power plant was put into some form of "special measures" last year due to continued cybersecurity lapses.
The Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR) confirmed to the newspaper that Sellafield failed to meet its cybersecurity standards but declined to comment on the breach. "The Guardian" stated that the problem of unsecured servers is extremely serious and the sensitive data involved may be used by Britain's enemies. Earlier this year, the UK’s National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) sounded the alarm about the risk of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure from hostile nations.
"They may become more threatening over time, so the National Cyber Security Center recommends organizations take action now to manage risks to prevent future attacks from succeeding."
A Sellafield spokesman told the Guardian: "At Sellafield we take cyber security very seriously. All of our systems and servers have multiple layers of protection. The critical networks that enable us to operate securely are isolated from our general IT network, which means there is a significant impact on our IT systems." attacks will not penetrate these networks. Over the past 10 years, we have continued to evolve to meet the challenges of the modern world, including an increased focus on cybersecurity. We have agreed a path from 'significantly strengthened' to regulatory downgrade due to the progress we have made."