Water and Wastewater Sector – Incident Response Guide

Cyber threat actors are aware of – and deliberately target – single points of failure. A compromise or failure of a Water and Wastewater (WWS) Sector organization could cause cascading impacts throughout the Sector and other critical infrastructure sectors. There are many Read More …

FBI: IRGC-Affiliated Cyber Actors Exploit PLCs in Multiple Sectors, Including U.S. Water and Wastewater Systems Facilities

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD) are disseminating this joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) to highlight continued malicious cyber activity Read More …

Sandworm Disrupts Power in Ukraine Using a Novel Attack Against Operational Technology

In late 2022, Mandiant responded to a disruptive cyber physical incident in which the Russia-linked threat actor Sandworm targeted a Ukrainian critical infrastructure organization. This incident was a multi-event cyber attack that leveraged a novel technique for impacting industrial control Read More …

2023 Zscaler ThreatLabz Report Indicates 400% Growth in IoT Malware Attacks

This Zscaler ThreatLabz blog serves as a brief synopsis of the key points revealed in their 2023 Enterprise IoT and OT Threat Report. The report explores the growth of Internet of Things (IoT) device traffic and IoT malware attacks, in addition Read More …

ICS protocol coverage using Snort 3 service inspectors

With more devices on operational technology (OT) networks now getting connected to wide-reaching IT networks, it is more important than ever to have effective detection capabilities for ICS protocols. However, there are a few issues that usually arise when creating Read More …

Multiple high severity vulnerabilities in CODESYS V3 SDK could lead to RCE or DoS

Microsoft’s cyberphysical system researchers recently identified multiple high-severity vulnerabilities in the CODESYS V3 software development kit (SDK), a software development environment widely used to program and engineer programmable logic controllers (PLCs). Exploitation of the discovered vulnerabilities, which affect all versions Read More …

A Tale of Two Cities’ water attacks

There have been more than 130 control system cyber incidents in water/wastewater utilities. Like Oldsmar and Discovery Bay, most of these incidents have occurred in small water utilities. Many of these incidents were not publicly disclosed, nor were the utilities Read More …

COSMICENERGY: New OT Malware Possibly Related To Russian Emergency Response Exercises

Mandiant identified novel operational technology (OT) / industrial control system (ICS)-oriented malware, which we track as COSMICENERGY, uploaded to a public malware scanning utility in December 2021 by a submitter in Russia. The malware is designed to cause electric power Read More …

Critical infrastructure gear is full of flaws, but hey, at least it’s certified

Devices used in critical infrastructure are riddled with vulnerabilities that can cause denial of service, allow configuration manipulation, and achieve remote code execution, according to security researchers. And most of these operational technology (OT) products – which include industrial control Read More …

Gone Phishing: Hunting for Malicious Industrial-Themed Emails to Prevent Operational Technology Compromises

Phishing is one of the most common techniques used to deliver malware and gain access to target networks. This is not only because of its simplicity and scalability, but also because of its efficiency in exploiting vulnerabilities in human behavior. Read More …