Indian nuclear power plant’s network was hacked, officials confirm | Hacker News Reader

Indian nuclear power plant’s network was hacked, officials confirm

arstechnica.com

185 pointsdoener48 comments

The Indian nuclear program has a long history of being thwarted by intelligence agencies. Not unexpected, considering the ramifications of nuclear military power.

In the past, it was the scientists of the program who were targeted, and were killed mysteriously. [0]

[0] https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/qbepmd/why-are-indian-aut...

That really is bizarre - that sort of assasination program is a direct threat to India's future defence capability. Why would the military not have been quickly involved in something like that?

With whom? They don't have enough soft power to do much here. Their primary opponent is also nuclear armed.

They surely were also engaged in similar programs in Pakistan.

Source? India isn’t a terrorist state

Is Pakistan?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_state-sponsored_t...

I mean it would be naive to argue otherwise.It is one of the primary instruments of control used by a mostly military ruled state over most of its history.

India's supported and does support BLA, TTP and LTTE.

Is that why the LTTE killed the Indian Prime Minister?

I don't know why a terrorist group did anything but based on the source below, RAW, the Indian Spy Agency actively trained and provided arms to LTTE and various other terrorist groups.

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/970119/plus4.html

India used to support LTTE a long time back(during Indira Gandhi's tenure). Rajiv Gandhi reversed all that. By 2009, India was actually proactively helping the Sri Lankan government to take down LTTE.

While India probably still supports BLA, there is no credible source that points towards India's support of TTP.

> While India probably still supports BLA, there is no credible source that points towards India's support of TTP.

Latif Mehsud, the chief spokesman of the group, admitted that they had received support from both Afghanistan and India.

And whatever Latif Mehsud says is credible?

If you are so certain, could you share some links to the said similar programs.

Doesn't take away the fact that the government seems woefully ill-equipped technology esp to tackle cyber security threats? Defence might qualify too sensitive to adopt tech from US, Israeli, Chinese, or Russian tech? Is the local talent up to the task incl working on/for government projects?

Ill equipped is the wrong word. Not equipped might be right. I did contract work for few of the largest Indian governmental organizations and unfortunately nepotism and security leaks are rampant. Pretty sure that nuclear plants have strict security but it's usually overridden by a higher up boss.

Paradoxically, it was worse for the Australian semi-government organization I worked for. I was a contractor and had access to almost everything.

Not that larger US governmental organizations are impeccable. This is one of the reason governments can't be trusted with backdoors. They will invariably lose it without anyone noticing it.

You have any evidence that US, Israel, China or Russia are in a better shape?

I don't, but those are traditional Defence partners India buys from and collaborates with. China, not so much, anymore.

Not just the nuclear program. The space programme at ISRO has also been constantly been threatened by foreign powers, often acting with political powers in India. The case of Nambi Narayanan is by far the most infamous, where the Kerala State Govt. was actively conspiring (with what circumstantially, and in Nambi's opinion, appears to be US) against Indian state interests. Imagine the furore that would be caused if Texas were conspiring with the USSR to overthrow the republic, but of course, in India, the media remains mum for reasons unknown.

This shouldn't be surprising - Mitrokhin notes how Indian ministers were falling over themselves to inform KGB/CIA for financial gain, and how Indira Gandhi herself was on KGB payroll. The media (nor the elite) is very different, as many recent scandals have shown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nambi_Narayanan

https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/the-kgb-papers-it-see...

It is well known the Indian communists have supported China over India in many instances. It is really weird considering China is not communist at least in economics any more.

> China is not communist at least in economics any more.

This depends on your interpretation. It could be argued that China's state capitalism -- where the state is the dominant capitalist, and owns most of the companies, property, and natural resources, is a form of communism, perhaps the most effective realisation of communism seen so far.

True private ownership is very limited, as property rights are subordinate to the will of the state. Land can not be owned as freehold, and is instead leased from the state.

> The case of Nambi Narayanan is by far the most infamous, where the Kerala State Govt. was actively conspiring (with what circumstantially, and in Nambi's opinion, appears to be US) against Indian state interests.

That is a strange claim. Why say State Govt, and subsequent analogy with Texas? Few government officials and a prominent media house seem to have trapped Nambi.

Father of Indian nuclear industry and arguably Indian Science Homi Bhabha was killed by the CIA long time back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homi_J._Bhabha#Assassination_t...

Although US is not a modern adversary this is an interesting piece of history. India had the world's most advanced thorium research once upon a time.

He was claimed to have been killed by the CIA. It's entirely possible that they were not involved.

I am suspicious of the North Korea attack as this attack requires a more sophisticated attack method which automatically limits the suspects to US, Russia, Israel, Germany, UK and France.

The CIA actively worked to undermine the Indian nuclear program over decades. So would not be surprised if they still had the infrastructure in place to carry out these attacks as well.

This attack had to have boots on the ground to pull off and some sort of insider access as well.

While this is a possibility, North Korea does have motive in looking to gather nuclear program info via hacking.

I had similar thoughts. Of course its NK, the most convenient nation state boogeyman we have in 2019. They are barely on the internet, yet somehow there is a large enough community of North Korean hackers such that their government can form this fantastical "Lazarus" hacking group from their constituents? Lazarus, which is purportedly capable of subverting nuclear power station security, exfiltrating 100TB of data from Sony, et. al.? Surely that doesn't require a huge range of unique talents which are best developed in an open and free society... I am at a point where NK is largely a CIA front.

Don't forget that East Germany and the Soviet Union routinely beat the West in things like IMO competitions..

North Korea has a large population to draw upon, 25 million people.

Genius existed before open and free societies.

>automatically limits the suspects to US, Russia, Israel, Germany, UK and France.

given the reactors for that power plant were built in collaboration with Russia, and the sabotaged Indian nuclear submarine is a modified Russian "Akula" design, i think this is rare case when Russia can be stricken from the list :)

I meant the capability of pulling off such an attack is quite limited.

Although, what if someone wanted to cover up their incompetence by blaming it on hackers. The classic Hanlon’s razor at work:

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/india-did-major-damag...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

No, it isn’t. Way more countries than you have listed are easily capable of this.

I am not sure that getting commodity style malware onto a internet connected workstation is truly considered sophisticated, but i am on board with caution before attribution.

I have not seen any further confirmed details in this or any other articles, how do you determine the necessity of boots on the ground?

>this attack requires a more sophisticated attack method which automatically limits the suspects to US, Russia, Israel, Germany, UK and France.

What about China? They undoubtedly have the capability. As for motivation, they’re a regional and economic competitor who shares a disputed border with India.

Oh no doubt about it. China covertly supports anti-Indian NGOs. There have been at least 2 documented cases of China supporting NGOs protesting against nuclear power in Kundakalam and NGOs supporting the closure of a copper manufacturing facility in TN. The latter resulted in loss of many jobs and made it easier for China to dump excess Copper in India.

I feel it is China to be honest.

1. https://www.quora.com/Do-the-Tamil-Nadu-people-realise-the-S...

The North Koreans are very sophisticated wrt computer science. They seem more than capable of attacks of this kind.

That being said, attacking the Indians doesn't really jive with their political aims. CIA makes way more sense.

> That being said, attacking the Indians doesn't really jive with their political aims.

It does make sense for China’s geopolitical aims, and currying favor with China while but implicating them is quite in line with DPRK interests.

> CIA makes way more sense.

CIA attacking India right now makes no sense, whatever the policy on their nuclear program might have been in the past, but then US foreign policy is such a complete mess right now that “makes no sense ” isn't really a strong argument against it being true.

Russia is increasingly dependent on selling of Soviet technology to keep their state propped up. Making it much more difficult for their customers to use that technology absolutely achieves the foreign policy goals of the CIA.

Probably china as there are often issues going on at indo china border

You're forgetting China, which is #1 in my list.

Also, North Korea has had a relationship with Pakistan, where the Pakis shared nuclear know-how and NK shared missile know-how. So, it could be NK-Pak combine.

Pakistan and NK relations have basically been non-existent since the early 2000s. On the other hand, India has had relations with NK fairly recently with trade being quire large, ambassadors visiting late last year etc.

Dibs on this being US. maybe not for nefarious purposes but to check if any weapons are being developed?

The nuclear controls appear to be air gapped : https://twitter.com/suryaceg/status/1189080266066649088

Iran's control systems were supposedly air gapped, Stuxnet was still able to deliver.

Oh boy stuxnet all over again?

Definitely jumping “air gaps” is something that needs big player involvement.

"The investigation revealed that the infected PC belonged to a user who was connected to the Internet connected network used for administrative purposes. This is isolated from the critical internal network."

The article explicitly states that there was no air gap at play here.

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