(LEAD) Vice minister says leaked information does not undermine safety of nuclear reactors

(ATTN: UPDATES with safety drills and inspection in paras 6-7)

SEJONG, Dec. 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's vice energy minister on Monday maintained that the country's nuclear reactors remain safe from serious harm despite a series of information leaks online by a hacker suspect, arguing that what has become public so far is not sensitive material.

Lee Kwan-sup, vice minister of trade, industry and energy, acknowledged the leaked documents appeared to be from Gori and Wolsong nuclear power plants, both more than 400 kilometers from capital Seoul, but include only general and unclassified information.

"The reason the Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co. (KHNP) says they (nuclear reactors) are safe is because these released documents are not something that can have any kind of impact on the safety of nuclear power plants," Lee told reporters.

"The government is handling this case with extreme care, but what we must bear in mind is that we do not know what the true intentions of these people are," Lee said.

The case has been referred to the prosecution for thorough investigation.

The state-run KHNP launched a two-day exercise earlier in the day to check the safety of its four nuclear power plants throughout the country against possible cyber attacks.

The energy ministry, together with the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety and two other state watchdogs, have also launched a special inspection into the network security of the Gori and Wolsong nuclear power plants.

Lee could not say whether the power plants have actually been breached but argued the suspected hacker could not have gained access to the plants' innermost networks, which contain sensitive, classified information and are completely cut off from the Internet.

The hacker, self-identified as the president of an anti-nuclear activist group, has published a wide range of information from last week, including personal information of some 10,000 KHNP workers and the blueprints and manuals of two reactors at the Gori and Wolsong power plants, through four separate postings on a Twitter account.

Lee said the information, regardless of their insignificance, should not have been leaked.

"However, it is also true that one cannot launch an attack (against those reactors) with such information and that a nuclear expert could easily obtain such information using Google's search engine," he said.

KHNP officials said the information could not have been leaked after April 2013, when the power plants' internal networks were completely separated and isolated from external and unauthorized access, making them virtually impenetrable even to hacking.

"We believe the information must have been leaked before the networks were disconnected and isolated last year," said Lee Jong-ho, head of the KHNP's engineering department.

The hacker has threatened to go ahead with a "second round of destruction" unless the government shuts down the nuclear reactors by Christmas, warning residents in areas near the plants to stay away for the next few months.

bdk@yna.co.kr
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