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Print 8 comment(s) - last by Missing Ghost.. on May 19 at 12:35 AM
A PC infected with a virus leaks Japanese power plant information on the Internet

The Japan Times reports that sensitive information from a thermoelectric power plant run by the Chubu Electric Power Company was leaked onto the internet following a virus infection. The unnamed virus is said to have spread documents regarding the plant’s security arrangements, locations of various facilities at the power company including the control room, instrument panel room and boilers, the names and addresses of its security personnel and other confidential information, via the popular file-sharing program “Share.” The incident occurred after a 40-year-old security employee installed Share on his computer in March.

This news report follows another such announcement by the power company four months back when security information was leaked through the file sharing program “Winny.” There have been other reports of viruses written specifically to leak information from infected PC’s onto the Japanese file sharing networks.  

The US energy industry has also seen its share of incidents. In 2003, the Slammer worm penetrated a private computer network at Ohio's Davis-Besse nuclear power plant and disabled a safety monitoring system for nearly five hours. In 2004, United Nations warned governments against threat of cyber attacks on nuclear plants and these instances just highlight the importance of Information Security and work that still needs to be done.

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fire the IT dept
By Souka on 5/18/2006 7:40:55 PM , Rating: 2
A user installed Share? Don't blame the user.....blame the IT for allowing a user authority to be able.


My $.02





RE: fire the IT dept
By KaerfSusej on 5/18/2006 7:52:43 PM , Rating: 2
Seriously, my high school has software installed on all the computers that prevents users from doing anything similar.


RE: fire the IT dept
By Pythias on 5/18/2006 7:54:43 PM , Rating: 2
Fire both. IT wasnt doing their job and the damned employee should have known better than to install personal software on a company computer.


RE: fire the IT dept
By nordicpc on 5/18/2006 9:11:07 PM , Rating: 2
Honestly the worst part is that there was a port open in the firewall to let Share access a server. I have a $250 router on my network, and I guarantee noone is using WinMX anymore.


RE: fire the IT dept
By Missing Ghost on 5/19/2006 12:35:17 AM , Rating: 2
I agree too. Any corporation can get in great troubles if their IT departement sucks. The problem they had is sooo easy to avoid, even somebody with not a lot of experience could fix it....Install a firewall that blocks all the ports but the ones absolutely needed, and prevent the users from installing software.


IT Department
By InternetGeek on 5/18/2006 6:16:16 PM , Rating: 2
It's strange this company doesn't have an IT department that will make sure that corporate assets are protected and used properly by the employees. Specially an energy generation company.




Security Enforcement
By cciesquare on 5/18/2006 6:40:00 PM , Rating: 2
They probably had great security procedures etc but the enforcement was probably not there.

I've seen many companies with all these great policies written and documented but once it goes on the book shelf no one cares about it.

Its like having posters all around a restaurant kitchen about sanitation, but no one cares. They know about it, but since no one is on their ass, they cut corners.




old
By Wwhat on 5/18/06, Rating: 0
"We are going to continue to work with them to make sure they understand the reality of the Internet.  A lot of these people don't have Ph.Ds, and they don't have a degree in computer science." -- RIM co-CEO Michael Lazaridis









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