It appears that the attackers behind the Red October cyberespionage campaign are taking their ball and going home. Since the attack came to light on Monday, the attackers have begun shutting down their infrastructure and the hosting providers and registrars involved with some of the command-and-control domains are shutting those down, as well.
Two popular industrial control system (ICS) researchers this week demonstrated how easily medical devices, including a Philips-branded machine that regularly interacts with x-ray machines and other hospital equipment, can be hacked.
Dennis Fisher talks with Costin Raiu and Ryan Naraine about the newly uncovered Red October cyberespionage campaign that has targeted embassies, diplomats, research facilities and military targets for more than five years now. Raiu explains the origins of the campaign, where the attackers likely are located, the complexity and scale of the malware tools involved and what other components might be lurking undiscovered out there.
During the past three months, unnamed malware infected two power plants’ control systems using unprotected USB drives as an attack vector. At both companies, a lack of basic security controls made it much easier for the malicious code to reach critical networks.
A rash of politically and socially motivated distributed denial-of-service attacks against major U.S. banks has been able to intermittently disrupt online and mobile banking services. The attackers have been able to fire unprecedented amounts of traffic at the likes of Wells Fargo, Bank of America, PNC and many others, temporarily denying customers access to their accounts online.
Never underestimate what you can do with a healthy list of advanced operator search terms and a beer budget. That’s mostly what comprises the arsenal of two critical infrastructure protection specialists who have spent close to nine months trying to paint a picture of the number of Internet-facing devices linked to critical infrastructure in the United States.
This week’s watering hole attack exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer was not limited to the influential Council on Foreign Relations site. A Metasploit contributor said an energy manufacturer’s website has been serving malware related to the attack since September.
UPDATE – Another high profile watering hole attack has been discovered, this one targeting visitors to the Council on Foreign Relations website.
Iranian officials are retracting Christmas day reports that malware resembling Stuxnet had been used to attack manufacturing facilities including a power utility in southern Iran.
The European Union has set a series of ambitious goals for itself: by 2020, the 27 member states expect to collectively use 20 percent renewable energy, reduce CO2 emissions by 20 percent, and increase energy efficiency by 20 percent. In order to accomplish these goals, Europe will need to perform a major overhaul to its power grid, which will play an integral role in the development of the Union’s proposed energy economy.
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