Russian nuclear power websites attacked amid accident rumors

["Paul Ferguson" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

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From: InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>

[snip]

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080523/108202288.html

23/05/2008

MOSCOW, May 23 (RIA Novosti) - Hackers attacked Russian nuclear power 
websites that allow users to check radiation background amid false 
rumors of a nuclear accident in northwest Russia, a nuclear industry 
official said on Friday.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, several Internet forums carried reports of 
radioactive emissions from the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant near St. 
Petersburg, and of a planned evacuation of local residents.

A spokesman for the Rosatom state nuclear corporation said the cyber 
attacks had been planned and coincided with the release of the reports.

"People who stand to lose out from the Russian nuclear power industry's 
development have an incentive to spread false rumors of an accident at 
the nuclear plant," he said.

"This was a planned action by hackers, which has brought down almost all 
sites providing access to the Automatic Radiation Environment Control 
System (ASKRO), including the Leningrad NPP site, the rosatom.ru site, 
and others. For several hours users were unable to reach the sites and 
obtain reliable information on the situation at the plant."

ASKRO is part of a permanent environment and sanitary control system, 
one of whose functions is to inform the population on radiation 
security. Access to the system is open to all visitors on a number of 
Russian nuclear industry websites. The system works in real-time.

Access to ASKRO data has now been fully restored, the spokesman said.

He said this was not the first incident of its kind in Russia. Last 
year, after similar false reports of an accident at the Volgodonsk 
nuclear plant, several dozen people, believing they could offset 
radiation damage by consuming large amounts of iodine, fell ill after 
poisoning themselves.


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- - 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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