Nuclear and other energy providers have been advised by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI that hackers might be trying to breach their computer systems.
There is no threat to public safety, the DHS said on Friday in a statement.
The DHS said hackers appear to have tried to breach the business and administrative networks of the facilities.
It did not identify the facilities.
The DHS and the FBI routinely advise the private sector of possible cyberthreats to help officials protect potentially vulnerable networks.
The statement came amid multiple news reports that nuclear and electrical power may have been targeted by hackers.
Both Reuters and the New York Times have previously reported government warnings about the hacking efforts.
The Nuclear Energy Institute said last week that no nuclear reactors were affected.
Had any facilities been impacted by a cyberattack, a publicly available report would have to be made to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Fears of hackers targeting US infrastructure, particularly nuclear facilities, have long persisted.
David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer and director of the nuclear safety project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the nuclear safety systems are generally out of the reach of hackers in analog systems.
However, business and administrative systems nonetheless contain valuable information about nuclear facilities, including maintenance schedules.
Hackers targeting such facilities are routinely looking for easy to access systems and information and try “to exploit [system weaknesses] and get as much information as possible,” Lochbaum said.
Among the most serious immediate risks, beyond someone using hacked information as part of a larger physical attack, is someone targeting the offsite power grid and causing an economic disruption, Lochbaum said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion