Talk me down from this, please, but after hearing about the Russian hacks

[thucythucy]

of our power grid--particularly the hacks of the computers running some of our nuclear plants--I am sick with the thought that one of our reactors will have a catastrophic "incident"--and that Trump will then go on the air blaming Muslim or immigrant terrorists. He'll do this in the face of every intelligence and news report that the Kremlin was responsible. He'll use this as an excuse to go all Patriot Act/Reichstag fire on us--and a quarter to a third of the public will believe it and march lock step down the road to fascism.

My hope is that there are enough good people in positions of power to stop this. But the very thought that such a scenario is at all possible is what kept me awake for much of last night.

So--any reassurance people can offer here would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks.

[democratisphere]

1. In drumpfland there are no assurances about anything.

[thucythucy]

2. That's my feeling as well. nt

[BSdetect]

3. You may be over thinking the scenario.

[thucythucy]

6. Let's hope so! nt

[RKP5637]

4. Now you've got me thinking the same too. Hard to tell what could happen with the madman in charge.

[mythology]

5. The computers that run the actual nuclear power aren't connected to the internet

It isn't possible with known technology to hop that air gap to hack it like you're worried about.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/07/07/is-hacking-nuclear-power-plants-something-we-should-be-afraid-of/#f2a2768dde84

[thucythucy]

7. I may be mistaken, but last night Rachel Maddow

reported that there is now the possibility that the Russians have indeed managed to jump from the business computers to the machines that actually run the physical plants. These might not be the nuclear plants, but conventional coal-burning LNG or hydro, but the possibility is still pretty frightening.

The Russians did manage to take down parts of the Ukrainian power grid several years ago. And the US, together with Israeli intelligence, were able to hack the computers that ran the Iranian uranium enrichment centrifuges. Presumably, all these systems were "off line" in the sense of not being physically connected to the grid.

I'm hoping you're right. Right now if we Rick "I wear glasses to make me look smart" Perry in charge of the Dept. of Energy, which somehow doesn't fill me with a lot of reassurance that the steps which need to be taken to secure all these systems are in fact being put into place.

But hopefully you're correct in your assessment.

Edited to add: I notice the byline on this article is from last July. I wonder if yesterday's notice from Homeland Security changes that assessment.

[Oneironaut]

16. Unfortunately, you can still have infected flash drives or insider attacks.

Offline components will never be 100% immune to attack.

[Taraman]

8. It's entirely possible

and I was thinking the same in the middle of the night. Rachel Maddow covered it well last night, and she had the (very smart) NY Times cybersecurity reporter on who had covered it. Russian attackers have accessed the control systems at the plants.

The Dept of Homeland Security has put out a public IT alert. I'm getting really tired on these Russians. If we had a patriotic POTUS, I would feel a lot safer.

This is a BIG story.

[triron]

9. I am not a nuclear engineer but worked in nuclear waste disposal my career

and my limited knowledge of the backup systems and safety procedures built into
the design and operation of nuclear plants tells me they are relatively safe from this kind of malice.
I would be much more worried about coal fired plants (for example).
OTOH our nuclear plants are like model T's compared to European plants which have
superior designs (due to bureaucracy and lack of funding and laws which retard modernization).

[Taraman]

10. DHS put out screen shots of Russian hackers in the control systems to show IT groups

how to recognize it. The problem is that many of the plants use older (legacy) software that is more hackable. They may be going through the business networks to get to the control systems.

[thucythucy]

12. That was my impression as well.

There is the news today that someone hacked into a Saudi oil refinery with the intention of making it explode.

Such an event anywhere would be devastating.

Let's hope the folks in the know are on top of this.

[ecstatic]

11. He's already teased us with "President for life" jokes

He's been projecting his plans for the past 2 years. He's praised Putin and dictators. He's studied Hitler. He's shitted all over norms. We are the frogs in the pot. He's inching us closer and closer to a Russia-like society and we're stuck wringing our hands while congress does nothing. I am very worried and very concerned. I'm going to talk to my family today about disaster preparedness plans. I talked to my brother last night and he's not taking any of it seriously at all, said I was overreacting. I'm going to vote absentee for November. I don't want to be in the US in the days leading up to and following the election.

[d_r]

13. the nuclear power plan

have not been unaware of this and have been preparing steadily for years. It is the power grid that you should be worried about.

I live 7 miles from a nuclear power plant, so I understand your worry. It got me too, then I had to STOP and think.

The nuclear power plants aren't connected to the internet. That wouldn't stop a "Mr. Robot" style from dropping a bunch of infected USB drives and waiting for a curious worker to plug one in (this is how stuxnet worked). But the electronics that run these aren't like desktop pc's and this approach would not work either.

Many of the nuclear power plants are not controlled by "computer control" anyway, and were purposefully left with physical electronic controls, you have to be actually standing there in the room to physically control them. Like on the Simpsons, but these folks aren't like Homer, they are smart and serious and want to live as much as you and I do.

[thucythucy]

14. Thanks.

I am somewhat reassured by some of the comments here, in that it seems nukes aren't the most vulnerable to malicious tampering.

But there are so many other nightmare scenarios that don't seem at all farfetched to me. For instance, the power grid shutting down in blue districts on election day, with the result that electronic voting machines won't work. Or media outlets getting compromised (the way DU was hacked on election day 2016).

The fact that our alleged commander-in-chief is a dolt of the first order, in fact may actually WANT such chaos to prevail, is not at all comforting.

Best wishes.

[d_r]

15. Yes, it scares me too

We are under attack. Unfortunately, a lot of people just hear "computer" and tune it out.