
  opinion();
   // By the LEET Staff

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B L A M E   T H E   H A C K E R S
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 It seems to me that everywhere you look, it's the hackers
that get blamed for everything. Be it a network shutdown,
to a report being late through the email system, to even
a recent nuclear power plant disruption. I was reading
through SecurityFocus, and I found this piece quite alarming:

"The breach did not post a safety hazard. The troubled plant 
had been offline since February, 2002, when workers discovered 
a 6-by-5-inch hole in the plant's reactor head. Moreover, the 
monitoring system, called a Safety Parameter Display System, had
a redundant analog backup that was unaffected by the worm. But 
at least one expert says the case illustrates a growing 
cybersecurity problem in the nuclear power industry, where 
interconnection between plant and corporate networks is becoming 
more common, and is permitted by federal safety regulations."

 Someone please tell me: What the HELL is up with that? They fail
to patch their systems, the plant is down anyway, the threat is
nothing, as they said themselves, but still they blame things on
hackers. The plant was shut down because there was a hole in it's
reactor! But still, the story isn't about how they don't properly
monitor their reactor, it's how they were infected by a Slammer.
The article failed to mention WHICH slammer hit the plant, but I
suppose it's the old SQLSlammer, or Sapphire. I have to say that
it must have taken skill, since the Sapphire is nearly completely
extinct, and that that plant seems to have a SERIOUS problem.
Also, what were workers doing at the plant if it has been shut down
for 2 and a half years anyway? Is this why electric bills go up?
I think that it's alarming and that things should be blamed on what
is the real problem: Not an infection of a system that's been down
for three years, but the fact that it HAS been down three years.

* Disagree with this article? Email code_dark@programmer.net with *
* your opinion, and get it published in the next LEET! - Staff    *
