The United Kingdom has no record or evidence that networks at the Sellafield nuclear facility have been the victim of a successful cyberattack by state actors, the government said on Monday after a report by the Guardian newspaper, UNN reports.
Details
"We have no record or evidence that Sellafield Ltd's networks have been successfully attacked by state actors in the manner described by the Guardian," the UK government said in a statement.
"Our monitoring systems are robust and we have a high degree of confidence that there is no such malware in our system," the government said. - This was confirmed by the Guardian well in advance of publication, along with a number of other inaccuracies in their reporting."
In a separate statement, the UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), according to Reuters, also said it had found no evidence that state actors had hacked its systems as described in the publication.
But the regulator pointed out that Sellafield does not currently meet certain high standards of cybersecurity that it requires, adding that it has placed the facility under "significantly increased scrutiny."
"Some specific issues are the subject of an ongoing investigation, so we are unable to comment further at this time," the ONR said.
Sellafield, controlled by the government's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, is located in northwest England and employs 11,000 people.
Context
The Guardian reportedthat Sellafield, a nuclear fuel reprocessing, nuclear waste storage and decommissioning company, was hacked by cyber groups with close ties to Russia and China.
The Guardian reports that it was "believed" that the ONR was preparing to prosecute individuals at Sellafield for the cyber failures.