- WASHINGTON (AP) - Government
regulators are warning nuclear plant operators about computer failures
caused by Internet infections, disclosing disruptions of two important
internal systems in January at a shutdown nuclear power plant in Ohio.
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- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said safety never was
compromised at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant. The NRC said it was
issuing a formal information notice this week to remind operators about
the threats to their computer networks from Internet infections.
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- The government confirmed that two important systems at
Davis-Besse were knocked offline for several hours, a safety parameter
display system and the plant process computer.
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- The NRC said the plant operator, FirstEnergy Nuclear,
determined that a contractor had established an unprotected computer connection
to its corporate network that allowed the so-called "Slammer"
worm to spread internally. The utility also failed to install a corrective
software patch from Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)
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- FirstEnergy Nuclear said that, in response, it was documenting
all external connections to its computer network, installing additional
protective software and instructing employees to be more diligent about
patches.
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- The NRC said it requires all plant safety systems to
be isolated from other parts of a company's computer network or be connected
in limited ways that prevent disruptions from affecting them.
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- The attacking infection, alternately dubbed "Slammer"
or "Sapphire," was never traced. It sought vulnerable computers
to infect using a known flaw in popular database software from Microsoft
Corp. called "SQL Server 2000."
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- The attacking software scanned for victim computers so
randomly and aggressively that it saturated many of the Internet largest
data pipelines, slowing e-mail and Web surfing globally.
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- Disruptions shook popular perceptions that vital national
services, including banking operations and 911 centers, were largely immune
to such attacks. It interfered with computers at the nation's largest residential
mortgage firm and briefly prevented many customers of Bank of America Corp.,
one of the largest U.S. banks, and some large Canadian banks from withdrawing
money from automatic teller machines.
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