A Cyber Attack On India’s Nuclear Plants is Likely – Here’s Why

What could an attacker do if they hacked into India’s nuclear power plants? And how likely is it to happen?

On 30 October, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India in an official press release said that… Yes, malware had been found on a PC on the administrative side.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Tamil Nadu became the subject of a cyber attack earlier this year.

The date is 30 October. Two days before, a few Twitter users had put out tweets saying that someone had gained domain-controller level access at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant. As the tweets gained speed and spread further, the power plant issued an official statement that said, “Any attack on the Nuclear Power Plant Control System is not possible.”

That was on 29 October.

On 30 October, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India in an official press release, turned this statement around, and confirmed the worst….That yes, there indeed had been an attack on the plant’s systems.

How could someone gain access to the plant’s system? What could they do with this access? And if compromised again, could the worst case scenario….a nuclear disaster happen?

The Quint’s Legal, and Tech and Policy experts Vakasha Sachdev and Sushovan Sircar explain why nuclear plants are susceptible to cyber attacks on this episode of The Big Story.