Hackers are Targeting Industrial Systems with Malware

[upnorth]

Content source

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/07/malware-circulating-online-wrangles-industrial-systems-into-a-botnet/

From the what-could-possibly-go-wrong files comes this: An industrial control engineer recently made a workstation part of a botnet after inadvertently installing malware advertising itself as a means for recovering lost passwords.

Lost passwords happen in many organizations. A programmable logic controller—used to automate processes inside factories, electric plants, and other industrial settings—may be set up and largely forgotten over the following years. When a replacement engineer later identifies a problem affecting the PLC, they can discover the now long-gone original engineer never left the passcode behind before departing the company. According to a blog post from security firm Dragos, an entire ecosystem of malware attempts to capitalize on scenarios like this one inside industrial facilities. Online advertisements like those below promote password crackers for PLCs and human-machine interfaces, which are the workhorses inside these environments.

Hackers are targeting industrial systems with malware

An entire ecosystem of sketchy software is targeting potentially critical infrastructure.

arstechnica.com

 

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Threat actors are targeting systems in industrial control environments with backdoor malware hidden in fake password-cracking tools. The tools, being touted for sale on a variety of social media websites, offer to recover passwords for hardware systems used in industrial environments.


Researchers from Dragos recently analyzed one such password-cracking product and found it to contain "Sality," an old malware tool that makes infected systems part of a peer-to-peer botnet for cryptomining and password cracking.

Trojanized Password Crackers Targeting Industrial Systems

Tools purporting to help organizations recover lost passwords for PLCs are really droppers for malware targeting industrial control systems, vendor says.

www.darkreading.com