14 DAY TRIAL // Hackers managed once again to terrify an entire nation after they shut down websites belonging to Russian nuclear power plants and spread information of a nuclear accident on the Internet. The worst thing is that people actually use the hacked websites to check radiations and radioactive emissions in a certain region, RIA Novosti reported a few days ago.
Although it's not clear whether the reports concerning the accident near St. Petersburg were published by hackers, the entire attack could have serious consequences since the news said that people would be evacuated from the region due to radioactive emissions. The websites have been unavailable for several hours, but the administrators moved as fast as possible and brought them back online in order to clarify the issue.
"People who stand to lose out from the Russian nuclear power industry's development have an incentive to spread false rumors of an accident at the nuclear plant. This was a planned action by hackers, which has brought down almost all sites providing access to the Automatic Radiation Environment Control System (ASKRO), including the Leningrad NPP site, the rosatom.ru site, and others. For several hours users were unable to reach the sites and obtain reliable information on the situation at the plant," a Rosatom Nuclear Energy State Corporation told RIA Novosti.
Although news about a nuclear accident could be easily found on other sources besides the web, including here TV and radio stations, such a hack attack could simply panic some people and have, as I've said, very serious consequences. Moreover, it seems like this had already happened in the past when a similar rumor reported a nuclear incident made people poison themselves.
However, it's interesting to find out how the hackers managed to get into such important and critical websites since it's well-known that a potential attack combined with false information could simply make people panic. Obviously, these websites would need advanced security protection, especially if this happened in the past and hackers probably plan to do it again in the future.