UK Government Denies Reports of Cyber ​​Attack on Sellafield Nuclear Site

JAKARTA - The British government stated on Monday 4 December that there were no records or evidence to suggest that the network at the Sellafield nuclear site was the victim of a successful cyber attack by state actors. This clarification emerged following a report by The Guardian newspaper.

The Guardian reported that Sellafield, which carries out nuclear fuel processing, nuclear waste storage, and decommissioning, was hacked by cyber groups closely linked to Russia and China.

"Our monitoring system is robust and we have a high level of confidence that there is no such malware in our system," said the government, quoted by VOI from Reuters. "This was confirmed to The Guardian well before publication, along with a refutation of number of other inaccuracies in their reporting."

Sellafield, which is controlled by the government's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, is located in the north west of England and has 11,000 employees.

In a separate statement, the UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) also said that it had seen no evidence that state actors had hacked its systems as described in the article.

However, regulators said that Sellafield does not currently meet some of the high cybersecurity standards they require, and added that they have placed the plant under "significant concern."

"Several specific matters are under ongoing investigation, so we cannot provide any further comment at this time," ONR said.

The Guardian report said that ONR was “believed” to be preparing to prosecute individuals at Sellafield over cyber security failures.