The cyber security industry has been urged to co-operate with government to protect UK critical national infrastructure from cyber attacks. UK security services have reportedly told nuclear power stations to bolster their cyber defences in the face of increased threats. Government officials have warned that terrorists, foreign spies and “hacktivists” are looking to exploit “vulnerabilities” in the nuclear industry’s internet defences, according to the Telegraph. UK energy minister Jesse Norman is quoted as saying that nuclear plants must make sure that they “remain resilient to evolving cyber threats”. However, he said the government is fully committed to defending the UK against cyber threats, and that the Civil Nuclear Cyber Securty Strategypublished in February 2017 sets out ways to ensure that the civil nuclear sector can defend against, recover from and remain resilient to evolving cyber threats. According to the strategy, the volume and complexity of cyber attacks against the UK are growing and the range of actors is widening. “The threat is becoming increasingly global and asymmetric. Both states and non-state actors can use easily-available cyber tools for destructive purposes,” the strategy states. The strategy sets out a voluntary roadmap to enable organisations in the civil nuclear sector to meet the increasing threat from cyber, and will support the development of cyber security capability of the sector, ensuring organisations will be able to comply with current and new regulation as well as being able to recover from compromises. However, for this to be achieved, the strategy said civil nuclear sector needs to work as a partnership between the government, regulator and industry, with clear roles and responsibilities which are understood and agreed. The strategy warns that the nuclear industry has to do more to protect itself, saying current mechanisms for sharing information in relation to vulnerabilities and how compromises have been addressed will need to be strengthened and enhanced to ensure good practice is shared, and continuous improvement can be made. In November 2016, veteran US investigative reporter Ted Koppel said a cyber attack on the US power grid is likely, but preparations for such an event are not up to scratch. “We are our own worst enemies,” he told Intel Security’s annual Focus conference in Las Vegas, saying that despite the risk of a cyber attack blackout, the US is unprepared for the consequences. Peter Carlisle, vice-president for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Thales e-Security believes cyber attacks against critical national infrastructure are set to increase dramatically as criminals develop “increasingly heinous methods” to jeopardise the UK’s national security. “From power stations to the transport network, the risk to the public remains severe, especially if hackers are able to gain access to electronic systems. “To tackle this, the security industry must stand shoulder to shoulder with the government to protect data and critical infrastructure from attack, and ensure hostile forces never have the opportunity to do us harm,” he said. Malcolm Murphy, technology director at network management firm Infoblox said attacks against IT networks are becoming increasingly common, and, if carried out against critical national infrastructure, can represent a significant threat to national security. “In addition to the damage caused to the networks themselves, a DDoS [distributed denial of service] attack on an organisation’s domain name system [DNS] can be used to prevent communication of and around the attacks, causing confusion and panic as seen in the attack on the Ukraine power grid in 2015,” he said. “The DNS is a mission-critical piece of network infrastructure used by all organisations without which networks cannot function. Often inadequately protected by traditional security solutions, it remains a vulnerable network component frequently used as an attack vector by cyber-criminals. “With botnets available for hire for relatively small sums of money online, DNS-based DDoS attacks are becoming increasingly easy for cyber criminals to carry out, and in their efforts to defend the country against the growing cyber threat, organisations responsible for the security of critical infrastructure should be making DNS protection a top priority,” he said. Most UK businesses have little visibility or control over their DNS servers and services, even though they are a key component of businesses’ infrastructure and security profile, a report published in March 2017 revealed. Only 8% of companies polled claim to have full visibility across all areas of DNS, including frequency of dropped requests, cache poisoning, latency and overall load on DNS infrastructure, rendering it impossible to ensure a consistent service to internal and external internet users. Source: http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450416097/UK-nuclear-stations-on-terror-alert-for-cyber-attacks

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UK nuclear stations on terror alert for cyber attacks