Virus leaks power station security info

Sensitive security information about a Japanese thermoelectric power plant run by the Chubu Electric Power Company has been leaked onto the internet following a virus infection, according to media reports. 

The virus, which has not been named in the reports, is said to have disseminated documents regarding the plant's security arrangements, names and addresses of its security personnel and other confidential information, via the popular Share file-sharing program.

The incident occurred after a 40 year-old security employee at Chubu Electric installed Share on his computer in March.

"There have been a series of viruses written specifically to leak information from infected PCs onto Japanese file-sharing networks, causing embarrassing headlines for the companies concerned," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"Data breaches like this are serious, and catapult sensitive information that should be kept confidential into the public domain for anyone to download."

Only four months ago, the power company suffered a similar problem when it announced that more sensitive information was leaked via the Winny file-sharing program.

The company said at the time that it would prohibit the installation of file-sharing software on employees' computers and better educate its staff regarding the safety of business data.