Posted on 11/06/2014 12:36:14 PM PST by driftdiver
A destructive “Trojan Horse” malware program has penetrated the software that runs much of the nation’s critical infrastructure and is poised to cause an economic catastrophe, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
National Security sources told ABC News there is evidence that the malware was inserted by hackers believed to be sponsored by the Russian government, and is a very serious threat.
The hacked software is used to control complex industrial operations like oil and gas pipelines, power transmission grids, water distribution and filtration systems, wind turbines and even some nuclear plants. Shutting down or damaging any of these vital public utilities could severely impact hundreds of thousands of Americans
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
LOL, You need to come up with something real if you want to be convincing that this isn’t real and that the public shouldn’t know about it if it is.
Another non answer. The possibilty is real, the probability is in question. If it was as easy as the article implies a lot more would have happened by now. This trojan has bee out there since 2011, it’s done things in NATO and Europe - what? Whaat exactly has it done? No one seems to know. If it is real what proof is there and concrete and viable solutions will “the aware public” offer? Or will they simply depend on the government to do everything?
You tell me, you are the one making the claims, put together your sources, put together something.
Probability? Every company gets hacked.
You first. You are claiming the article is true, and saying the truth needs to be told so the public becomes “aware of the threat” so they can use “politics” to apply “political pressure” so that the threat is countered. Why to you believe it the alleged threat is actually true? And what would the goals and outcomes of that political pressure be?
Maybe they do, but what happens becasue of it? What happened to NATO and in Europe when Sandworm has been attacking them with Blackenergy malware since 2011?
I’d like some specifics, people believe the threat this article alleges is true, if it is true what happened? Something concrete like the natural gas pipeline blowing up in 1985 would be convincing. No one seems to know anything that has actually happened becasue of the hack - yet we are to believe that all software “used to control complex industrial operations like oil and gas pipelines, power transmission grids, water distribution and filtration systems, wind turbines and even some nuclear plants” in the US is under the control of hackers.
Where is the proof? ABC and Drudge said ti so it must be true? DHS said it so it must be true?
What happens? They steal data mostly. Data worth money or to give them a strategic advantage.
Or they can choose to damage the systems. It happens every single day.
Here is a quote from an article published November 4, 2014;
“In the report, researchers point out varying versions of BlackEnergy – BE2 and BE3 – in attacks, but Baumgartner said that BlackEnergy3 “seems to have been a delivery vehicle for BlackEnergy2 at a victim site.”
Included in the report were indicators of compromise (IOCs) for BE2 and BE3, along with attack methods Sandworm Team used to target four unnamed victim organizations.”
http://www.scmagazine.com/experts-share-new-insight-on-sandworm-apt-exploits-blackenergy-malware/article/381378/2/
Four victims, how about that. A little different than what the ABC article implies.
http://www.isightpartners.com/2014/10/cve-2014-4114/
That is another good article on Sandworm and who they targeted. Again it paints a picture completely different than the one in the article this thread links. Specifically different than this allegation; “A destructive “Trojan Horse” malware program has penetrated the software that runs much of the nation’s critical infrastructure and is poised to cause an economic catastrophe, according to the Department of Homeland Security.” That statement seems to be a bunch of crap.
Here is another article about sandworm targeting SCADA apparently sandworm hasn’t been sucessful at penetrating a SCADA system to date. They were “spear-phishing” a weponized powerpoint document. The Microsoft vulnerabilty the weponized powerpoint used has been patched;
http://www.isightpartners.com/2014/10/sandworm-team-targeting-scada-systems/
Yep, no electricity is not a big deal here. We do without quite often. The only difference would be the length of time. Thousands of people for thousands of years did without electricity.
People have the attention span of gnats.
Generally-speaking, yes. Agreed. However, I'd take it one step farther: Most people are dumb as gnats.
All I did was read the news, you are telling us this is fake news (that should be kept secret), so prove it.
You seem obsessed with telling us all that this is fake news, and also news that should not have been released to us because it’s supposed to be secret, or some such thing, I’m not much interested in your compulsive postings.
>> “the security controls are severely lacking” <<
.
And false security, such as long,complex passwords, is choking government operations constantly.
I just proved it, read posts 88 and 89.
I work in the financial industry, so you could probably imagine the security protocols we try to follow. We have 2 teams: Security Reaction Team (SRT) for immediate or ongoing threats and the Security Warning And Triage (SWAT) team for impending or lapsed threats. I'm a technical member of the SRT but feel the effort is just a fancy way to place blame on others when our IT Security team fails at their job.
To be fair, a majority of infections and infiltrations on networked systems occur as a direct result of user behavior. Spear fishing is just another way that these entities gain access to personal data and corporate networks in general. It just takes one infected user BYOD on a secured corporate network to bring down an entire company’s security fence.
The buzzword in some sectors of IT Security is “pass phrases.” Passwords are passé and a general threat to the integrity of most systems.
We enforce a 10-character minimum on our domain passwords, and users cannot reuse their previous 23 passwords. We hear a lot of complaints, but as user training continues, more people are glomming on to the idea that a long phrase, even if it’s spelled out perfectly, is better for security and memory than a single word fleshed out with numbers and symbols.
Yes if you read the article the weaponized powerpoint was a lure; “Many of the lures observed have been specific to the Ukrainian conflict with Russia and to broader geopolitical issues related to Russia.” If the target didn’t open the powerpoint there was no exploit.
Way different than what the ABC article linked in the opening post implies.
“A destructive “Trojan Horse” malware program has penetrated the software that runs much of the nation’s critical infrastructure and is poised to cause an economic catastrophe, according to the Department of Homeland Security.”
That statement is simply not true.
Another comment puts it this way; “•An attacker can exploit this vulnerability [now patched in Microsoft Windows] to execute arbitrary code but will need a specifically crafted file and use social engineering methods (observed in this campaign) to convince a user to open it.”
I read it that there were documented instances where the PPT was opened and an attack vector was established. Is that not the case?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.