The National Critical Infrastructure Security Operations Center (CI-SOC) confirmed this morning that yesterday’s nuclear evacuation alert was the result of a remote cyberattack on the nuclear radiation monitoring system near the Delano Nuclear Power Station. “While the attacker has taken efforts to hide their tracks,” General Buck Turgidson told reports this morning, “We have detected clear evidence that the sensors were compromised and directed to produce the high gamma radiation warnings that were the direct cause of yesterday’s evacuation order for Delano, GA.”
Turgidson explained that the CI-SOC was working closely with the Nuclear Power Generation Council to determine exactly how the NRMS were hacked and how to fix the underlying vulnerability in those sensors. “The US Army has deployed radiological monitoring teams in the Delano area to provide temporary background radiation coverage while we are working to remove the vulnerabilities from the installed system.”
S. James Butts, Delano Police Chief, in a separate news conference this morning discussed the looting that took place in the downtown business district during yesterday’s evacuation. He described some unorganized looting at two small grocery stores and one gun shop. “No weapons were taken, but most of the ammunition on display in the store walked out the front door,” Butts explained.
Butts went on to explain that the Delano Police Department had requested assistance from the Federal Bureau of Inquiry in investigating what appeared to be organized assaults on four jewelry stores. Everything in the display cases was removed at each store and safes were opened in three of the four stores. Video security systems showed that each store was hit by masked, three-person teams. Butts told reporters that: “The initial estimate of losses from the three stores is over a half-million dollars.”
Johnathan Quest, spokesperson for the FBI, confirmed that the agency was investigating the break ins in Delano, GA. “Jewelry store robberies are not typically high on the FBI’s crime list, but since it appears that these robberies are tied into the cyberattack on the radiation monitoring system, a federally regulated system, the FBI certainly feels that it has jurisdiction over robberies.
Mayor Arrington Carter told reporters this morning that she was disappointed with the way that the radiation warning system worked yesterday. Acknowledging that the system is an important safety measure that protects local citizens from potential accidental radiation releases from DNPS, she said: “Given their importance, the NMRS should not have been able to trigger an automatic radiation evacuation absent any indications of an actual release at DNPS. I will be working with the DNPS management team and the Energy Security Agency to see that this problem does not happen again.”
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