Morning Security Brief: U.S. Nuclear Security, India-Pakistan CT Agreement, FBI Info-Sharing, Internet Kill Switch, & More

♦ A nuclear expert yesterday told a Senate committee that back-up batteries at U.S. nuclear plants would fail much faster than Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant. "David Lochbaum, a nuclear expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, which generally takes a critical tone toward nuclear reactors, said that just 11 of the nation’s 104 plants had eight-hour batteries, and 93 had four-hour batteries," reports The New York Times. "The batteries are not powerful enough to run pumps that direct cooling water, but they can operate valves and can power instruments that give readings of water levels, flow and temperatures. After the March 11 tsunami disabled the local electricity grid at the Fukushima Daiichi plant and the plant’s emergency diesel generators, the failure of the batteries deprived the plant’s operators of those crucial measurements."

♦ In a bid to thaw relations after the 2008 terrorism attack in Mumbai, Pakistan has agreed to establish a counterterrorism hotline with India and allow Indian investigators into the country. "In a statement following two days of talks in New Delhi, India's home secretary and Pakistan's interior secretary said on Tuesday that the hotline would help 'facilitate real-time information sharing with respect to terrorist threats,'" reports The Telegraph. "Security analysts said the moves were a major concession by Pakistan, aimed at persuading India of its sincerity in tackling terrorism and preventing any further attacks being plotted from its territory."

♦ A rising FBI official says the bureau must get better at sharing terrorism-related information with the private sector. "The bureau needs to share warning signs to watch for -- 'tripwires' and 'threat indicators'-- with companies to prevent attacks such as the one in Mumbai in 2008, said Brenda Heck, deputy assistant director in the FBI’s counterterrorism division," Bloomberg.com reports. "In that assault, 10 terrorists with rifles, grenades and explosives killed 166 people in India’s financial capital. A hotel takeover with small arms in the U.S. like the one in Mumbai might first appear to be simply a violent crime, she said."

♦ The bill that critics worry seeks too much cybersecurity regulatory power is back on the radar again. "Congress is considering a bill called ‘Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act of 2011’ that would establish mandatory security requirements and benchmarks for entities deemed as critical, or those used by Americans on a daily basis such as energy transmissions, water supply,transportation and the financial system, while at the same time giving the President the ability to shut particular federal systems of assets whose disruption would cause national or regional catastrophes," reports FOXBusiness.com. "Despite its language strictly prohibiting a situation where the government could shut down the Internet to stifle freedom of speech rights, the bill has been widely criticized by those who fear it would place too much power in lawmakers' hands." While some critics say the bill contains "an Internet kill switch," Sen. Joseph Lieberman says that the idea has become the “death panels of the cybersecurity debate.”

♦ NASA's inspector general has warned once again that the agency has critical cybersecurity vulnerabilities. "The OIG audit found six computer servers on NASA's agency-wide network that control NASA spacecraft and contain critical data had vulnerabilities that could allow a remote attacker to take control of or render them unavailable," reports Infosecurity-us.com. According to the OIG audit, "once inside the agency-wide mission network, the attacker could use the compromised computers to exploit other weaknesses we identified, a situation that could severely degrade or cripple NASA’s operations”