Denmark energy cyber attack highlights infrastructure security gaps


November 2023 saw an unprecedented cyber attack on Denmark’s energy infrastructure. In a co-ordinated breach of 22 companies, criminal gangs gained access to industrial control systems.

Investigators believe at least one of the attackers was acting on behalf of a state. Michael Murphy, who heads Fortinet’s APAC Operational Technology group from the company’s Sydney office, says critical infrastructure was compromised: “Energy generation sites were forced into island operation mode, where they are no longer centrally managed.” He says the affected companies had a next-generation cybersecurity product in place that they assumed would protect them from any threat. It didn’t.

Read more…
Source: The New Zealand Herald News


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • FireEye, Microsoft create kill switch for SolarWinds backdoor

    December 17, 2020

    Microsoft, FireEye, and GoDaddy have collaborated to create a kill switch for the SolarWinds Sunburst backdoor that forces the malware to terminate itself. This past weekend it was revealed that Russian state-sponsored hackers breached SolarWinds and added malicious code to a Windows DLL file used by their Orion IT monitoring platform. This malicious DLL is a backdoor ...

  • This ‘off the shelf’ Tor backdoor malware is now a firm favorite with ransomware operators

    December 17, 2020

    A Remote Access Trojan (RAT) on sale in underground forums has evolved to abuse Tor when maintaining persistence on infected machines. On Thursday, Sophos Labs’ Sivagnanam Gn and Sean Gallagher revealed ongoing research into the malware, which has been in the wild since 2019. Dubbed SystemBC, the RAT has evolved from acting as a virtual private network ...

  • New Goontact spyware discovered targeting Android and iOS users

    December 16, 2020

    Security researchers have discovered a new malware strain with spying and surveillance capabilities —also known as spyware— that is currently available in both Android and iOS versions. Named Goontact, this malware has the ability to collect from infected victims data such as phone identifiers, contacts, SMS messages, photos, and location information. Detected by mobile security firm Lookout, ...

  • HPE discloses critical zero-day in server management software

    December 16, 2020

    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has disclosed a zero-day bug in the latest versions of its proprietary HPE Systems Insight Manager (SIM) software for Windows and Linux. While security updates are not yet available for this remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability, HPE has provided Windows mitigation info and is working on addressing the zero-day. Zero-days are publicly disclosed ...

  • Firefox Patches Critical Mystery Bug, Also Impacting Google Chrome

    December 15, 2020

    A Mozilla Foundation update to the Firefox web browser, released Tuesday, tackles one critical vulnerability and a handful of high-severity bugs. The update, released as Firefox version 84, is also billed by Mozilla as boosting the browser’s performance and adding native support for macOS hardware running on its own Apple processors. In total, six high-severity flaws ...

  • Gitpaste-12 Worm Widens Set of Exploits in New Attacks

    December 15, 2020

    The Gitpaste-12 worm has returned in new attacks targeting web applications, IP cameras and routers, this time with an expanded set of exploits for initially compromising devices. First discovered in a round of late-October attacks that targeted Linux-based servers and internet-of-things (IoT) devices, the botnet utilizes GitHub and Pastebin for housing malicious component code, has at ...