'Data Storm' Blamed for Nuclear-Plant Shutdown

["Fergie" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

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Via SecurityFocus.

[snip]

The U.S. House of Representative's Committee on Homeland Security called
this week for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to further
investigate the cause of excessive network traffic that caused an Alabama
nuclear plant to shut down last year.

During the incident, which happened last August at Unit 3 of the Browns
Ferry nuclear power plant, operators manually shut down the reactor after
two water recirculation pumps failed. The recirculation pumps control the
flow of water through the reactor, and thus the power output of
boiling-water reactors (BWRs) like Browns Ferry Unit 3.

An investigation into the failure found that the controllers for the pumps
locked up following a spike in data traffic -- referred to as a "data
storm" in the NRC notice -- on the power plant's internal control system
network. The deluge of data was apparently caused by a separate
malfunctioning control device, known as a programmable logic controller
(PLC).

[snip]

More:
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11465

- - ferg

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--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg(at)netzero.net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/


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