Kaspersky plans software for securing nuclear plants

By: Matt Smith and Daniel Fineren, Reuters

Russian anti-virus software company Kaspersky Lab is developing a secure operating system to run computers inside nuclear power plants and other vital infrastructure and industrial plants, its founder and CEO said on Tuesday.

Eugene Kaspersky, the Russian computer scientist turned multi-millionaire cyber security expert, told reporters at a company news conference in Dubai the system was at the prototype stage, with his Moscow-based company in talks with government institutions about installing the new operating system. He declined to identify any, saying the talks were confidential.

Energy and water plants, factories and transportation systems are typically run with SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems that are accessible via conventional computer networks, making them vulnerable to hackers, Kaspersky said.

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