A new report warns UK's Trident submarines 'vulnerable to catastrophic hack'

The UK defence secretary Des Browne confirmed that such kind of attacks on a large-scale could have unpredictable effects.

“The WannaCry worm attack earlier this month affecting 300,000 computers worldwide, including vital NHS services, was just a taste of what is possible when cyber-weapons are stolen.” said Des Browne.

“To imagine that critical digital systems at the heart of nuclear weapon systems are somehow immune or can be confidently protected by dedicated teams of network managers is to be irresponsibly complacent.”

The report details the attack vectors that could be exploited to destroy or endanger operations, but it highlights that it takes sophisticated, well-resourced and sustained cyberattacks to trigger the vulnerabilities in remote submarine subsystems.

“These attacks are beyond the scope of all but the most well-resourced and extensive non-state groups. Essentially, the principal threat comes from other states’ cyber operations alongside extensive and highly sophisticated intelligence activities.” states the report.

The authors of the study estimate that the capital costs for the UK government to improve cybersecurity for the Trident submarines would run to several billions of pounds over the next 15 years.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – hacking, Trident submarines)

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