SCADA Security and the "Most Monumental Non-Nuclear Explosion and Fire"

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SCADA Security and the "Most Monumental Non-Nuclear Explosion and Fire"

4/14/2004

By Terry Calhoun

You probably have to be of a certain age to remember that the Internet itself came about as a U.S. defense project to create a distributed information network that would still function even if parts of it were destroyed. Let me brag that I have in fact *heard* of SCADA before, but temper that by saying that I knew little of it and appreciate frequent guest-commentator J'e St Sauver asking us, this week, to think about this other aspect of national security that apparently hasn't kept up with the Internet.
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SCADA Security and the "Most Monumental Non-Nuclear Explosion and Fire"

By J'e St Sauver
University of Oregon Computing Center

Like Cliff Claven (the jovial factoid-sharing postal carrier of the syndicated television comedy, "Cheers"), I'm easily enthralled by trivia. For example, I bet you didn't know that Hells Canyon, location in remote northeastern Oregon, is North America's deepest river gorge, did you? Well, it is... see: http://www.fs.fed.us/hellscanyon/overview/index.shtml

Now that you know my attraction to trivia, you can imagine my reaction when I came across news reports of a Siberian explosion in 1982, an explosion that was said to have been the "most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space." This incident was first disclosed by Thomas Reed, Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Air Force, in his new book, At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War (Presidio Press, March 2004, ISBN 0891418210).

According to published reports, (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A10432-2004Feb26—Found=true ) the United States arranged for the Soviets to receive intentionally flawed process control software for use in conjunction with the USSR's natural gas pipelines. Reed stated that "The pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines, and values was programmed to go haywire, after a decent interval, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds." The result? A three-kiloton blast in a remote area of Siberia in 1982, which, only by some miracle, apparently didn't result in any deaths. (For context, the Halifax Fire Museum lists the massive 1917 Mont Blanc ship explosion in the Halifax Harbor at a force of 2.9 kilotons.)

As with any sort of covert operation, it is hard to know for sure what really happened, and what's disinformation. For example, a senior KGB veteran, Vasily Pchelintsev, has publicly stated that while a gas pipeline explosion did occur in 1982, it was the result of poor pipeline design and construction flaws, and was a minor incident that was rebuilt in "one day." (see the English language story at http://www.themoscowtimes.ru/stories/2004/03/18/014.html )

Regardless of whose version of the Siberian gasline explosion story you believe, by now you may be asking, "What d'es all this have to do with IT Trends?"