Russian Warns of Cyber Terror Against Nuclear Sites

A senior Russian security official has warned of grave dangers posed by the potential intersection of cyber terrorism and nuclear terrorism, Interfax reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 12).

“An interconnection between nuclear terrorism and cyber terrorism could have a global catastrophic nature.  The likelihood is not an invention.  The hacking of a computer at the Ignalina nuclear power plant in Lithuania could have resulted in a disaster similar to that in Chernobyl,” Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Valentin Sobolev said at the “Terrorism and Electronic Media” conference in Cyprus.

The computer networks of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have been hacked, Sobolev said.  He also noted security problems at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico (see GSN, Nov. 6).

Israeli researchers found more than 730,000 vulnerabilities in 36 million Internet addresses originating in 214 countries, Interfax reported.  These included information systems for French, Indian and U.S. nuclear research facilities.

“A flawed system of control over fissile materials and flaws in antiterrorist laws in virtually all countries objectively increase the threat of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists,” Sobolev said (Interfax, Nov. 8).

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