- US Treasury sanctions Russian research institute behind Triton malware
October 23, 2020
The US Treasury Department announced sanctions today against a Russian research institute for its role in developing Triton, a malware strain designed to attack industrial equipment. Sanctions were levied today against the State Research Center of the Russian Federation FGUP Central Scientific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics (also known as CNIIHM or TsNIIKhM). A FireEye report ...
- Practical example of fuzzing OPC UA applications
October 19, 2020
In an article published in May 2018, Kaspersky ICS-CERT described their approaches to searching for vulnerabilities in industrial systems based on the OPC UA protocol. Two years later, the issue of ensuring the security of industrial systems based on that protocol is as relevant as ever. Large vendors of industrial software continue to develop and support ...
- MontysThree: Industrial espionage with steganography and a Russian accent on both sides
October 8, 2020
In summer 2020 we uncovered a previously unknown multi-module C++ toolset used in highly targeted industrial espionage attacks dating back to 2018. Initially the reason for our interest in this malware was its rarity, the obviously targeted nature of the campaign and the fact that there are no obvious similarities with already known campaigns at ...
- Threat landscape for industrial automation systems. H1 2020
September 24, 2020
Beginning in H2 2019 we have observed a tendency for decreases in the percentages of attacked computers, both in the ICS and in the corporate and personal environments. In H1 2020 the percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects were blocked has decreased by 6.6 percentage points to 32.6%. The number was highest in Algeria (58.1%), ...
- Critical Industrial Flaws Pose Patching Headache For Manufacturers
September 23, 2020
While patch management already presents challenges for enterprises, it’s even more of a headache for manufacturers and other industrial firms – who may even need to shut down entire factory operations in order to apply fixes. Sharon Brizinov, the principal vulnerability researcher with Claroty, has discovered and reported various security flaws in industrial control systems (ICS), ...
- A Blind Spot in ICS Security: The Protocol Gateway [Part 3] What ICS Security Administrators can Do
September 23, 2020
A protocol gateway is a small network device, also called a “protocol converter” or “IoT gateway.” It is similar to an “interpreter” in the digital word, and acts as a communications intermediary between different protocols. As the integration of networks accelerates with IoT, protocol conversion grows increasingly important. However, the security of protocol gateways has ...
- The State of Industrial Cybersecurity 2020
September 15, 2020
In 2020 ARC Advisory Group on behalf of Kaspersky conducted a survey on the state of industrial cybersecurity, as well as the current priorities and challenges of industrial organizations. More than 330 industrial companies and organizations across the globe were surveyed online and 10 industry representatives were interviewed at trade fairs and ARC forums worldwide. This ...
- A Blind Spot in ICS Security: The Protocol Gateway [Part 2] Vulnerability Allowing Stealth Attacks on Industrial Control Systems
September 14, 2020
A protocol gateway is a small network device, also called a protocol converter” or “IoT gateway.” It is similar to an “interpreter” in the digital word, and acts as a communications intermediary between different protocols. As the integration of networks accelerates with IoT, protocol conversion grows increasingly important. However, the security of protocol gateways has not ...
- Strategic investment to secure smart factories
September 9, 2020
Security is undergoing a digital transformation in the manufacturing industry. As the fusion of the cyber world and the physical world progresses, various security issues are mounting. Manufacturing executives must view security as a management issue, not as a system issue. Is cyber security a cost or an investment? Trend Micro has published an ebook that focuses ...
- Cyberthreats for ICS in Energy in Europe. Q1 2020
September 4, 2020
Computers in European countries which are used to configure, maintain and control equipment in the energy industry on which Kaspersky products are installed. This includes Windows computers on which various software packages for the energy industry are installed, including but not limited to human-machine interface (HMI), OPC gateway, engineering, control and data acquisition software. Overall, in ...
- A Blind Spot in ICS Security: The Protocol Gateway [Part 1] – Importance of the Protocol Gateway
September 1, 2020
A protocol gateway is a small network device, also called a “protocol converter” or “IoT gateway.” It is similar to an “interpreter” in the digital word, and acts as a communications intermediary between different protocols. As the integration of networks accelerates with IoT, protocol conversion grows increasingly important. However, the security of protocol gateways has ...
- Bugs in HDL Automation expose IoT devices to remote hijacking
August 8, 2020
A security researcher discovered vulnerabilities in an automation system for smart homes and buildings that allowed taking over accounts belonging to other users and control associated devices. In a presentation on Saturday at the IoT Village during the DEF CON hacker conference, Barak Sternberg shows how some weak spots in the HDL automation system could have ...
- Hackers can remotely hijack enterprise, healthcare Temi robots
August 6, 2020
Robots used in hospitals and care homes to assist patients and the vulnerable can be fully hijacked by cyberattackers. On Thursday at Black Hat USA, McAfee’s Advanced Threat Research (ATR) team disclosed new research into the robots, in which remotely-exploitable vulnerabilities were uncovered, potentially leading to mobile, audio, and video tampering on the hospital floor. The robot ...
- Lost in Translation: When Industrial Protocol Translation goes Wrong
August 5, 2020
Translation makes it possible to exchange information across the globe, regardless of language differences. Translation plays a similar role in industrial internet of things (IIoT) environments where different devices, such as interfaces, sensors, and machines, use different protocols. Protocol gateways handle the translation of these different protocols in an industrial facility, allowing devices to communicate ...
- Unveiling the Hidden Risks of Industrial Automation Programming
August 4, 2020
Robots and other programmable industrial machines are the backbone of the manufacturing industry. Without them, the large-scale and fast-paced production that our modern economy depends on would simply be impossible. Critical sectors — from automotive and avionics to pharmaceuticals and food production — are reliant on these machines for the precise and efficient actions that ...
- Critical Bugs in Utilities VPNs Could Cause Physical Damage
July 29, 2020
Remote code-execution vulnerabilities in virtual private network (VPN) products could impact the physical functioning of critical infrastructure in the oil and gas, water and electric utilities space, according to researchers. Researchers at Claroty found that VPNs used to provide remote access to operational technology (OT) networks in industrial systems are vulnerable to an array of security ...
- Maritime cyber attacks increase by 900% in three years
July 29, 2020
Cyber attacks on the maritime industry’s operational technology (OT) systems have increased by 900% over the last three years with the number of reported incidents set to reach record volumes by year end. Addressing port and terminal operators during an online forum last week, Robert Rizika, Naval Dome’s Boston-based Head of North American Operations, explained that ...
- NSA Urgently Warns on Industrial Cyberattacks, Triconex Critical Bug
July 24, 2020
The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have issued an alert warning that adversaries could be targeting critical infrastructure across the U.S. Separately, ICS-CERT issued an advisory on a critical security bug in the Schneider Electric Triconex TriStation and Tricon Communication Module. These safety instrumented system (SIS) controllers are ...
- This is how EKANS ransomware is targeting industrial control systems
July 2, 2020
New samples of the EKANS ransomware have revealed how today’s cyberattackers are using a variety of methods to compromise key industrial companies. In a research report published on Wednesday, FortiGuard Labs researchers Ben Hunter and Fred Gutierrez said that malware designed to attack industrial control systems (ICS) continues to be lucrative for threat actors. While ransomware only accounted for ...
- Threat Assessment: EKANS Ransomware
June 26, 2020
Unit 42 researchers have observed recent EKANS (Snake backward) ransomware activity affecting multiple industries in the U.S and Europe. As a result, we’ve created this threat assessment report for the activities of this ransomware. Identified techniques and campaigns can be visualized using the Unit 42 Playbook Viewer. EKANS, which was first observed in January 2020, has relatively ...
