The Vulnerability of Nuclear Facilities to Cyber Attack

In June 2010, U.S. Senators Susan Collins, Joseph Lieberman, and Tom Carper introduced the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act. One of its many aims is to protect critical infrastructures in the United States from cyber attack. In January 2011, Brandon Milhorn, staff director of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, defended the bill, saying that it would prevent a hacker from opening the floodgates of the Hoover Dam. Peter Soeth, a spokesman for the US Bureau of Reclamation, the agency which manages the Hoover Dam, objected to that example, arguing that "These types of facilities are protected by multiple layers of security, including physical separation from the internet, that are in place because of multiple security mandates and good business practices."