Nuclear security

Nuclear power plants are terrorist bait, need extra protection – ex-IAEA chief to RT

Nuclear power plants are one of the best protected facilities in the world, but they still remain likely targets for terrorists and therefore require extra protection, Hans Blix, former IAEA chief, told RT.

“One has to be very careful, of course, about installations like nuclear power plants and enrichment plants,” said Blix, who headed the International Atomic Energy Agency between 1981 and 1997.

“I’d say that nuclear installations are the ones that are best protected in the world because they are they are used to anticipating any dangers of transportation or machinery,” he added.

But Blix stressed that modern nuclear facilities “are getting more digitalized – earlier, they weren’t – and they now have to be given a special new protection” from potential cyber-attacks.

He recalled the hack at Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz back in 2010 “where a malware called ‘Stuxnet' was smuggled in and managed to stop several hundred enrichment centrifuges.”

“On the whole I think terrorists would prefer other objects, which are easier to access. But on the other hand a nuclear power plant is a very sexy object for them,” he said.