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Computer Intrusion Inflicts Massive Damage on German Steel Factory

posted by martyb on Saturday December 20 2014, @06:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the hope-nobody-was-hurt dept.

Blackmoore writes:

Ars technica - Computer intrusion inflicts massive damage on German steel factory

A German steel factory suffered significant damage after attackers gained unauthorized access to computerized systems that help control its blast furnace, according to a report published Friday by IDG News.

The attackers took control of the factory's production network through a spear phishing campaign, IDG said, citing a [pdf] report published Wednesday by the German government's Federal Office for Information Security. Once the attackers compromised the network, individual components or possibly entire systems failed.

 
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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 21 2014, @04:17PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 21 2014, @04:17PM (#128037)

    I work on a related aspect of the steel production industry.

    You can't shut down a blast furnace quickly. Most things that you can do to the furnace take 8-24 hours before you see an effect. Shutdown and startup procedures are on the higher end of that. In addition, a blast furnace is an EXTEMELY dangerous place to be when anything isn't working properly.

    Shutting off the air supply and letting the furnace freeze up is an expensive but reasonable choice under the circumstances.

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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday December 21 2014, @07:22PM

    by HiThere (866) on Sunday December 21 2014, @07:22PM (#128087) Journal

    All the more reason for an air gap...and that means no wifi or bluetooth control either.

    Yeah, I'm not sure a manual shutdown is a good idea, but the control system should not be remotely accessible, and it should probably have a manually switchable backup system in place. (i'm guessing about the relative cost of a blast furnace and its control system, but I think it's a pretty reasonable guess.)

    Of course, the backup controls means you need a decent way to tell that they are working, so an automatic switch between systems every time you restart the system seems reasonable. Or perhaps every week, with someone standing by watching the meters so they can do the manual switch if necessary.

    --
    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.