Britain's Sellafield nuclear facility, home to the world's largest repository of radioactive plutonium, has been attacked by cybercriminals linked to Russia and China.
Journalists have uncovered severe cyber security issues at the Sellafield nuclear complex
Investigative journalists have learned that Sellafield's management has been aware of cybersecurity issues for at least the past ten years but has not said anything about them.
According to British intelligence services, this critical information was deliberately concealed.
What is essential to understand is that extremely secret data is stored on the object's servers, primarily about responding to nuclear incidents and even a nuclear strike.
The extent of the problem was only discovered when employees of Sellafield's external site discovered that they could access its servers. There are other signs of the extent to which facility employees do not monitor safety.
Against this background, it is also impossible to mention the incident when, in July 2022, the facility's login credentials and passwords to secure IT systems were accidentally shown on the BBC TV channel.
Russian and Chinese hackers took advantage of the Sellafield vulnerability
According to journalists, Sellafield's servers were accessed by cyber groups closely associated with Russia and China.
This first became known in 2015, but there is still no official confirmation that the malware was successfully removed from the object's servers.
This could mean that some of Sellafield's most sensitive activities, such as moving radioactive waste, monitoring leaks of hazardous materials and checking fires, have been compromised, the Guardian explains.
According to journalists, in 2022, Sellafield was placed under exceptional control due to cyber security issues.
