Nuclear plants warned of Internet virus attacks

By Ted Bridis, Associated Press, 9/4/2003

WASHINGTON -- Government regulators are warning nuclear plant operators about computer failures caused by Internet infections, disclosing disruptions of two important internal systems in January during a shutdown of an Ohio nuclear power plant.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said safety never was compromised at the Davis-Besse plant. But the NRC said it was issuing a formal information notice this week to remind operators about the threats to their computer networks from computer viruses.

The government confirmed that two important systems -- a safety parameter display system and the plant process computer -- at Davis-Besse were knocked offline for several hours.

The NRC said the plant operator, FirstEnergy Nuclear, determined that a contractor had placed 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.

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.

The NRC said it requires all plant safety systems to be isolated from other parts of a company's computer network or limit the connections to prevent disruptions from affecting them.

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 called "SQL Server 2000."

The attacking software scanned for victim computers so randomly and aggressively that it saturated many of the Internet's largest data pipelines, slowing e-mail and Web surfing globally.

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 US banks, and some large Canadian banks from withdrawing money from automated teller machines.