Infrastructure protectionU.K. airports, nuclear power stations on terror alert following “credible” threat

Airports and nuclear power stations in the United Kingdom have been instructed to bolster their defenses against terrorist attacks in the face of intensified threats to electronic security systems.

Security services have issued a series of alerts over the weekend, warning that terrorists may have developed ways of bypassing safety checks.

The U.S. intelligence community concluded that ISIS and other terrorist groups have developed ways to embed explosives in laptops and mobile phones in ways that make it impossible for airport security screening methods to detect them.

This conclusion last week has led the United States and Britain to ban travelers from ten airports in six Muslim-majority countries from bringing electronic devices larger than cellphones onboard.

The Sun reports that U.S. and British security services now are concerned that terrorists will use the techniques to bypass screening devices at European and U.S. airports, and at other critical infrastructure facilities such as nuclear power stations. The U.K. government has warned that terrorists, foreign spies, and “hacktivists” are looking to exploit “vulnerabilities” in the nuclear industry’s internet protections.

Jesse Norman, the energy minister, told the Telegraph that nuclear plants must make sure that they “remain resilient to evolving cyber threats.”

Norman said: “The government is fully committed to defending the U.K. against cyber threats, with a £1.9 billion investment designed to transform this country’s cyber security.”

He said the civil nuclear strategy published in February sets out ways to ensure that the civil nuclear sector “can defend against, recover from, and remain resilient to evolving cyber threats.”

Professor Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director-general of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), an independent think tank for defense and security, said: “It is important for the government to respond rapidly to evolving cyber security threats. The potential threats are wide-ranging and are coming from government and non-government sources. Crucially there has to be clear co-operation with the private sector to tackle this, especially as airports are usually in private hands.”

The Sun notes that the FBI experts have tested how the explosives can be hidden inside laptop battery compartments in a way that allows a computer still to be turned on. They FBI found that the technique would be achievable using everyday equipment.

DHS said in a statement: “Evaluated intelligence indicates that terrorist groups continue to target commercial aviation, to include smuggling explosive devices in electronics.

“The U.S. government continually reassesses existing intelligence and collects new intelligence. This allows us to constantly evaluate our aviation security processes and policies and make enhancements when they are deemed necessary to keep passengers safe.”

Last year, the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab detonated a bomb on a flight from Mogadishu to Djibouti, hiding the explosives in a part of a laptop where bomb-makers had removed a DVD drive. 

The bomber was blown out of the window, but the plane managed to land safely despite the big hole in the fuselage wall.

Safety experts noted that the bomb would have brought the plane down had the explosion occurred after the plane had reached cruising altitude.

The latest five-year Civil Nuclear Cyber Security Strategy says: “The volume and complexity of cyberattacks against the U.K. are growing and the range of actors is widening.” Government officials told the Telegraph that cyberattacks “could disrupt supply, damage facilities, delay hazard and risk reduction, and risk adverse impacts to workers, the public or the environment.”