Plankowner
Posts: 9165
Location: Upper lefthand corner of the map. | Subject: Nuclear Plants Cautiously Phase Out Dial-Up Modems
Threat Level Privacy, Crime and Security Online
Nuclear Plants Cautiously Phase Out Dial-Up Modems
* By Kevin Poulsen Email Author
* October 12, 2009
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is asking the operators of America’s 66 nuclear power plants to voluntarily upgrade the on-site monitoring systems that report plant conditions to the government.
That upgrade to the 16-year-old Emergency Response Data System? Replacing telephone dial-up modems with VPN appliances.
modem
“Licensees currently use analog modulator/demodulators (modems) to establish point-to-point data connections,” the NRC wrote in a memo to plant operators late last month. “Although this technology was state of the art when ERDS was first implemented, it is now obsolete, and replacement equipment is no longer available.”
The NRC notes several advantages to doing away with dial-up. For one, in a crisis all the plants could report data to the NRC’s Maryland headquarters simultaneously, without the hassle of busy signals. In addition, “The use of modems inherently introduces cyber security vulnerabilities to the systems to which they are attached.”
The ERDS ties into plant computer systems to give the NRC’s 24-hour Operations Center a “near real-time” view of plant conditions around the country, according to NRC regulations — including reactor core and coolant conditions, and radioactivity release rates.
As of May 1, 2009, operators of 19 plants had expressed interest in getting rid of their modems. One hopes the other 47 will soon follow those early adopters.
Next year, I hear they’re getting cable.
Top image: The Trojan nuclear power plant, courtesy Oregon.gov. Modem photo courtesy SecretLondon123.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/nuke_modems/ |
Master and Commander
Posts: 1405
Location: Houston, TX (Best state in the US) | Subject: RE: Nuclear Plants Cautiously Phase Out Dial-Up Modems
Actually that is a crock of crap......I think that while the performance maybe slower, you can probably get satisfactory communication over a very secure modem connection. A pair of USR HST's can be set up to only talk to each other....just because they are obsolete doesn't mean they are useless..(Nope, I'm not going to make the analog to the healthcare situation..) And when you consider that hardly anyone except third world countries are using modems means that they are less like for an attack by hackers.....what self respecting turd would attack a 56 K modem?
Gimme a break......Technical elitism is just as bad as any other elitism
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Nuclear Plants Cautiously Phase Out Dial-Up Modems
