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The UK's most hazardous nuclear site has been hacked by cyber groups linked to Russia and China, according to reports.
Sellafield, a large multi-function nuclear site close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria, England, had breaches of its IT systems as far back as 2015, the Guardian revealed.
Their investigation has found that "the astonishing disclosure and its potential effects have been consistently covered up by senior staff. It also found that authorities are unsure as to when the first succesful hack took place.
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What is known is that the groups appeared to use sleeper malware, malicious software that lies in wait on the device it has infected, timed to go off either on a specific date, or at the end of its countdown, according to Boxphish.
It is not known whether the malware has been dealt with fully, the Guardian added.
This means like sensitive national data about how the UK moves radioactive waste, monitors for leaks of dangerous material and checks for fires could be in the wrong hands.
Sources at the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the security services also added that Sellafield was last year placed into a form of “special measures” for consistent failings on cybersecurity. The Guardian reported that prosecutions for these failings could materialise.
Sellafield has the largest store of plutonium on the planet and acts as a dump for nuclear waste from weapons programmes.
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The site also deals with nuclear waste from other countries and also holds emergency planning documents used in the event that the UK comes under foreign attack or faces disaster.
Sources told the paper that the full extent of the damage was hard to quantify becaus of "Sellafield’s failure to alert nuclear regulators for several years".
A Sellafield spokesperson said: "Critical networks that enable us to operate safely are isolated from our general IT network, meaning an attack on our IT system would not penetrate these."
The spokesperson added that Sellafield is "working closely with our regulator."
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