A former British defense minister has warned that the country's Trident nuclear deterrent could become useless if the prime minister cannot ensure it is fully protected from cyber attacks..
Des Browne, who served in the last government between 2006-08, told The Guardian newspaper that an "end-to-end" assessment of online threats to the system was necessary.
He was apparently referring to a US report from 2013, which warned that the US and its allies “cannot be certain” that their cyber defenses could withstand an organized attack.
“The government … has an obligation to assure Parliament that all nuclear deterrence systems have been assessed from start to finish against cyber attacks, to understand potential vulnerabilities and that those vulnerabilities are protected against high-level threats,” Browne told the newspaper.
“If they are not able to do that, then there is no guarantee that we will have a credible deterrent or that the prime minister will be able to use that system when he needs to.”
The former defence was speaking as Prime Minister Cameron confirmed that the successor to Trident would receive approval from this government after a vote in parliament.
Sean Sullivan, a security consultant at F-Secure, argued that any nuclear defense system should be isolated—cut off from the internet and therefore no longer affected by cyberattacks.
“Given that the report was clearly written to prejudice those who brought up the issue of including internet technology on US submarines, I am convinced that in the analysis, US submarines will not be connected to the internet anytime soon, therefore, they should be secure against cyber-attacks,” he told Infosecurity.
“I can’t imagine the UK would do it any differently.”
However, it is still appropriate to consider whether defense systems are vulnerable to sabotage, he added.
“Stuxnet was a good example bypassing in order to cause interference. An attack may not be able to execute a timely attack, but there are still possibilities to affect Trident systems, causing ‘mysterious’ maintenance issues,” Sullivan argued.
“I think we’re a long way from that though.”
FireEye systems engineer Jens Monrad agreed that nuclear systems would be better isolated and not dependent on internet infrastructure, making cyberattacks less likely.
“Proving that something is 100% secure or protected can be very complicated, but I assume that extra analysis has been conducted in monitoring, isolating these sensitive networks from the public, as well as ensuring that individuals who have access to these systems have undergone rigorous and thorough background checks, as well as ongoing checks,” he told Infosecurity.
