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Foreign hackers breached a US nuclear weapons plant via SharePoint flaws

(www.csoonline.com)
433 points zdw | 10 comments | 21 Oct 25 15:51 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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reenorap ◴[21 Oct 25 17:16 UTC] No.45658455[source]▶
There needs to be a law that all nuclear and nuclear-adjacent facilities have no connection to the Internet. The fact it's allowed is unbelievable.
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JumpCrisscross ◴[21 Oct 25 17:57 UTC] No.45659165[source]▶
> needs to be a law that all nuclear and nuclear-adjacent facilities have no connection to the Internet

Why the special treatment for nuclear? Do you really think redlining a dam or storm-levee system would be less damaging?

Also, turning off internet connections means less-capable remote shut shut-off. Less-responsive power plants. Fewer eyes on telemetry.

We should be mindful of what is and isn't connected to the internet, and how it's firewalled and--if necessary--air gapped. That doesn't mean sprinting straight for the end zone.

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1. doublerabbit ◴[21 Oct 25 18:03 UTC] No.45659264[source]▶
> Also, turning off internet connections means less-capable remote shut shut-off.

Why does it have to be remote what's wrong with it being in-house? Besides a shut-off should never be able to be triggered remotely.

The same goes for digital emergency shut off buttons; all should be physical.

> Less-responsive power plants.

What? How is remote any more responsive than physical workers being in-house?

If power-plants operated efficiently back in the 50's without internet, they should be able to now without internet.

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2. JumpCrisscross ◴[21 Oct 25 18:27 UTC] No.45659637[source]▶
> Why does it have to be remote what's wrong with it being in-house?

Nothing wrong with it being in house. But having a back-up is never bad.

> How is remote any more responsive than physical workers being in-house?

If the on-site workers are incapacitated. It's a remote (hehe) risk. But so is foreign hackers doing anything with our nukes.

> If power-plants operated efficiently back in the 50's without internet, they should be able to now without internet

If you're fine paying 50s power prices again, sure, I'm sure a power company would happily run their plants retro style.

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3. IAmBroom ◴[21 Oct 25 19:56 UTC] No.45660895[source]▶
> But having a back-up is never bad.

It is always an increase in risk, in a security sense.

4. HippyTed ◴[21 Oct 25 20:35 UTC] No.45661351[source]▶
The one exception I can think of is remote shutdown in the face of a rapid natural disaster. Like how the japanese train network is set to shut down rapidly when a high power quake is detected.

But that is very geography dependant.

5. tehjoker ◴[21 Oct 25 22:11 UTC] No.45662377[source]▶
good argument against having nukes
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6. JumpCrisscross ◴[21 Oct 25 23:06 UTC] No.45662904{3}[source]▶
One can paraphrase the joke about democracy for nukes. Having nukes is the worst, other than every situation where you don’t have nukes and the other guy does.
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7. fragmede ◴[22 Oct 25 02:18 UTC] No.45664216[source]▶
> When expressed in constant 2019 dollars, the average price of electricity in the United States fell from $4.79 per kilowatt-hour in 1902 (the first year for which the national mean is available) to 32 cents in 1950.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/electricity-its-wonderfully-afford...

$0.32 is $0.41 accoreit BLS, which is less than I'm paying today (I live somewhere with expensive electricity), so I'd enjoy the discount if they did!

https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=0.32&year1=201...

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8. JumpCrisscross ◴[22 Oct 25 03:09 UTC] No.45664527{3}[source]▶
> $0.32 is $0.41 accoreit BLS, which is less than I'm paying today

Out of curiosity, what was the real power price where you live in the 60s?

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9. fragmede ◴[22 Oct 25 08:47 UTC] No.45666386{4}[source]▶
Had a long back-and-forth with ChatGPT and it says, accounting for inflation, that it's roughly the same from the 50s and the 60s versus today.
10. tehjoker ◴[22 Oct 25 12:44 UTC] No.45668214{4}[source]▶
Most of the other guys get nukes because we have nukes and threaten them militarily. They're very expensive, countries don't want them unless they need a deterrent, and we're often the main threat.