In its strategic plan for the next four years it said: “We recognise the world is increasingly globalised and digitised, where both the terrorist threat and the risks from cyberspace are changing.”
Last week it was reported the Brussels attackers – who detonated two bombs at the city’s airport and another at one of its metro stations – may also have been planning to steal radioactive material from nuclear power plants in Belgium for use in a dirty bomb.
“Failure to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of sensitive information and assets from both known and emerging security threats to the UK nuclear infrastructure (e.g. cyberattacks, terrorist activity, state sponsored espionage),” topped a list of risks the ONR said it was facing.
The regulator provided assurances the government and other duty-holders have “well developed security capabilities to deter and defend against organisations and individuals that might conspire to attack or exploit the nuclear estate”.
However it said it would continue to work with the government to ensure regulations evolve with the times, adding that “new outcome-focused security regulatory guidance” will be issued in March 2017.
In November the chancellor George Osborne warned that National Grid could be under threat of a significant cyber attack by extremist group Isis, as part of a plot to target UK infrastructure.