German Nuclear Plant Found To Be Infested With Old Malware

A German nuclear power plant  a mere 75 miles away from the city of Munich was apparently found to be ridden with old malware including file stealing bot-ware and remote access Trojans.

The malware was found to be present on the min computer system responsible for monitoring the power plant’s fuel rods.

Fortunately for the people of Germany living close by, nobody was ever in any danger because the malware was unable to activate itself because the computer in question is not connected to the internet.

Among the malware discovered were such once perennial well knowns Conficker and W32.Ramnit.

It as yet unclear quite how the viruses came to be found residing in a nuclear control system computer.  The viruses were recently discovered at Gundremmingen’s B unit. The computer system underwent an upgrade back in 2008, which makes it likely that the malware was transferred in then, as the malware found would have been most active worldwide at the same time.

RWE, the company in charge of the power plant said in a statement that incident posed no threat whatsoever at any point in the last 8 years.

Malware was also discovered to be present on 18 USB storage devices, which is how the viruses mentioned above primarily spread themselves. It would also seem that the infection was not part of any nefarious plot to target the nuclear power plant, as the viruses focused on financial fraud.   and it appears that the plant was not specifically targeted by attackers since the malware was focused largely on financial fraud.

RWE have now increased their cyber security measures and the National German Federal Office for Information Security is investigating.

Fears that exposure to radiation would somehow mutate the malware into something far more terrifying and deadly were found to be completely unfounded, despite the fact that it would have made for a better story.