The email systems of Japan's Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) have been temporarily suspended, with the outage apparently caused by a cyberattack. The Nuclear Regulatory Authority of Japan (NRA) posted a notice on its website asking people to contact it by phone or fax as it is unable to receive email.
The NRA states in its official statement about the incident the following: “As of 17:00 on October 27, sending and receiving emails with the Nuclear Energy Regulatory Authority of Japan has been temporarily suspended. Therefore, we cannot accept email registrations for general hearing applications. If you wish to contact us, please register by phone or fax.”
Email systems were taken down last week and Japan's Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) has launched an investigation into the incident. According to media reports, there is no indication so far that the operation of Japanese nuclear plants has been affected by the cyberattack.
The US government is warning of a North Korea -linked APT hacking group that has targeted the US, South Korea and Japan to collect information about nuclear policy and sanctions .
Japanese media reported that an unknown third party managed to gain unauthorized access to the networks of the Nuclear Regulatory Authority of Japan. On October 26, Japan's Deputy Foreign Minister Okada said at a press conference that unauthorized access had occurred to the NRA's network, while the leak of sensitive and confidential information has not yet been confirmed.
Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that the attackers gained access to information related to the security measures implemented at the country's nuclear facilities, because this information is stored on a separate air-gapped network, as Japan's Deputy Foreign Minister, Katsuya Okada, pointed out in a statement.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) continues to investigate the safety incident in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security and will proceed with the analysis of its cause in order to prevent the recurrence of similar events in the future.
