On 11 January 2023, the “Ghost Security Group” (commonly referred to as “GhostSec”) issued a bold claim (captured on Twitter, among other places) that they “encrypted the first RTU in history.” The claim rapidly came under scrutiny from several directions – for an excellent analysis of this specific case and Read more…
Background On 12 April 2022, the Ukrainian CERT and ESET disclosed the existence of Industroyer2, a successor to the malware targeting Ukrainian electric distribution and transmission operations in 2016. Industroyer2 arrived after multiple disruptive cyber incidents of varying degrees of success surrounding Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, as presented in Read more…
Following the ransomware incident impacting Colonial Pipeline operations in May 2021, many parties asked how such a disruption, impacting one of the main arteries delivering refined petroleum products to the Eastern and Southeastern United States, could occur. Based on information available, the intrusion did not directly impact Industrial Control Systems Read more…
Note: On 21 March 2023, website GCN reported that the “hack” was actually an employee error. More worringly, statements from the city manager at the time indicate this was known from the outset, yet still resulted in several investigations from local and federal law enforcement. Interestingly, this story has not Read more…
“Energetic Bear” (also known as Dragonfly, Crouching Yeti, etc. etc.) has been in the news lately given a recent series of intrusions targeting local government and critical infrastructure entities in the United States. While the group has gained attention recently, its activities go back at least a decade with the Read more…
Few arguments are more frustrating to deal with than those which include compelling, accurate observations to plaster over selective examples and willful misrepresentation. Such is the case with a recent video posted by Ralph Langner concerning ICS-specific cyber threat intelligence (CTI). Langner makes some astute observations concerning the industrial threat Read more…
Media, social feeds, and other sources of news are awash with stories of the “first death linked to ransomware” following an incident in Düsseldorf on 09 September 2020. Since the event, authorities in Nordrhein Westphalen have launched an investigation treating the death as “negligent homicide”. At the time of this Read more…
Two recent articles appeared concerning possible implications of or prompts for the 01 May 2020 Executive Order on the US electric system. Notably, the Executive Order was quickly followed by a US Department of Commerce investigation into the supply of electrical transformers. While the latter would appear related to typical Read more…
The realm of computer security incidents and events draws increasing amounts of attention, not only from specialists and key decision-makers within the field but also “lay” (or non-technical) audiences. As a result of such increasing desire to know about and understand events in this field, researchers as well as journalists Read more…
The most frustrating type of bad argument to refute are those which feature or rest upon a kernel of truth. In the worst, most-annoying scenario, one must deal with a counterparty that simply reasserts their position without hesitation resembling the chess-playing pigeon of Internet fame. More worrying still is that Read more…