Hackers have targeted the power firms operating in the United States with a new malware called Industry or Crash Override. But the best part is that the attack was pre-estimated by the National Security Agency in time which averted a major outage hitting the metropolitan cities of United States.
Two cyber security firms named ESET from Slovakia and Dragos, Inc from the US released a detailed analysis of the malware called Crash Override on this note yesterday.
The experts say that the said malware was responsible for causing a massive power outage in Ukraine in December 2015. And the analysis adds further that the malware developers have the potential to re-purpose and use it against other targets which are critical to a nation.
Dragos founder Robert M Lee said that the hackers are now interested in targeting nations in Europe as their attempts to cripple the network of United States’s critical infrastructure failed on miserably.
However, Mr. Lee argued that Industry or Crash Override doesn’t have the potential to bring down a country’s entire power infrastructure.
Lee said that the malware is devised in such a way that hackers can easily tweak it and launch cyberattacks on infrastructures such as local transportation providers, water, and gas providers including telecommunication companies.
Ukraine’s State-run Computer Emergency Response Team which advises businesses in its region on how to defend against cyber attacks commented on the discovery of malware by saying that such notorious software can only be made and spread by hackers hailing from Russian Federation.
ESET says that companies can defend against Crash Override by specifically monitoring their network for unusual traffic, including signs that the malware is searching for the location of substations or is sending anomalous messages to switch breakers.
Dragos, Inc says that hackers will target other nations like Europe, France, and Germany with the malware as their attempt to cripple the power grids in the United States has failed due to the vigilance of US watchdog.
