Uh-oh. How just inserting a USB drive can pwn a Linux box

Remember the notorious Stuxnet worm? It was a highly-sophisticated piece of malware – developed by the United States and Israeli intelligence – which targeted Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility. One of the things which made Stu… Continue reading Uh-oh. How just inserting a USB drive can pwn a Linux box

Signed Malware

Stuxnet famously used legitimate digital certificates to sign its malware. A research paper from last year found that the practice is much more common than previously thought. Now, researchers have presented proof that digitally signed malware is much more common than previously believed. What’s more, it predated Stuxnet, with the first known instance occurring in 2003. The researchers said they… Continue reading Signed Malware

Trisis has the security world spooked, stumped and searching for answers

At first, technicians at multinational energy giant Schneider Electric thought they were looking at the everyday software used to manage equipment inside nuclear and petroleum plants around the world. They had no idea that the code carried the most dangerous industrial malware on the planet. More than four months have passed since a novel, highly sophisticated piece of malware forced an important oil and gas facility in the Middle East to suddenly shut down, but cybersecurity analysts still don’t know who wrote the code. Since last August, multiple teams of researchers in the public and private sectors have been examining what the perpetrators planted inside a nondescript Saudi computer network. It’s a rare case involving a computer virus specially engineered to sabotage industrial control systems (ICS) — the gear that keeps factories and refineries running. Manipulating these systems can have a destructive impact far beyond the network. Today, the incident’s magnitude and implications are […]

The post Trisis has the security world spooked, stumped and searching for answers appeared first on Cyberscoop.

Continue reading Trisis has the security world spooked, stumped and searching for answers

Triton Malware Targets Industrial Control Systems in Middle East

Malware intended for a “high-impact” attack against safety systems likely would of caused physical damage to a targeted company located in the Middle East. Continue reading Triton Malware Targets Industrial Control Systems in Middle East

Assessing Weaknesses in Public Key Infrastructure

Academic researchers size up weaknesses in the the code-signing Public Key Infrastructure and highlight three types of flaws. Continue reading Assessing Weaknesses in Public Key Infrastructure

Spotlight on Energy and Utilities Sector: Attacks Targeting ICS Systems Projected to Increase

According to IBM X-Force data, cybercriminals have been targeting industrial control systems in the energy and utilities sector at an increasing rate.

The post Spotlight on Energy and Utilities Sector: Attacks Targeting ICS Systems Projected to Increase appeared first on Security Intelligence.

Continue reading Spotlight on Energy and Utilities Sector: Attacks Targeting ICS Systems Projected to Increase

New cybersecurity partnership makes it easier for Israeli companies to sell to U.S. authorities

The United States and Israel unveiled a new cybersecurity partnership on Monday aimed at “stopping adversaries in networks and identifying ways to hold bad actors responsible,” according to White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert. Bossert announced the “Israeli-U.S. bilateral cyber working group” at the opening of the Cyber Week 2017 conference in Tel Aviv. The group, which will meet this week, will be led by Rob Joyce, the White House’s cybersecurity coordinator, and Eviatar Matania, the director general of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate. Members will include an unspecified number of representatives from across the U.S. and Israeli military, criminal justice and foreign relations establishments. Joyce previously ran the U.S. National Security Agency’s Tailored Access Operations (NSA TAO), the spy agency’s offensive division. Matania has helped shape Israeli cybersecurity policy for the past several years but has a private sector pedigree that includes tech and venture capital. “The meetings this week will focus on a […]

The post New cybersecurity partnership makes it easier for Israeli companies to sell to U.S. authorities appeared first on Cyberscoop.

Continue reading New cybersecurity partnership makes it easier for Israeli companies to sell to U.S. authorities

Researchers find cyberweapon capable of knocking out electric grids

A newly discovered malware framework, which some believe carries signs of Russian authorship, can be used by hackers to disrupt industrial control systems and cause mass power outages, according to research conducted by cybersecurity firms Dragos Inc. and ESET. The findings are significant because they represent the first known real-world case of a computer virus designed to directly interact with electric grid hardware, explained Sergio Caltagirone, director of threat intelligence for Dragos. Researchers believe that a version of the malware framework, dubbed “CrashOverride” or “Industroyer,” was previously leveraged to hack into an electric transmission station in Ukraine causing a black out for several hours last December in neighborhoods just north of Kiev. Evidence of a connection between CrashOverride’s author and the attackers behind last year’s Ukrainian power grid incident exists, according to Caltagirone, but was not published in Dragos’ technical analysis. In January, iSight Partners, a subsidiary of U.S. cybersecurity […]

The post Researchers find cyberweapon capable of knocking out electric grids appeared first on Cyberscoop.

Continue reading Researchers find cyberweapon capable of knocking out electric grids