| Title | US Natural Gas Operator Shuts Down for 2 Days after Being Infected by Ransomware | |
| Date | Thursday February 20 2020, @06:57AM | |
| Author | martyb | |
| Topic | ||
| from the blames-Jumpin'-Jack-Flash dept. | ||
US natural gas operator shuts down for 2 days after being infected by ransomware:
A US-based natural gas facility shut down operations for two days after sustaining a ransomware infection that prevented personnel from receiving crucial real-time operational data from control and communication equipment, the Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday.
Tuesday's advisory from the DHS' Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, didn't identify the site except to say that it was a natural gas-compression facility. Such sites typically use turbines, motors, and engines to compress natural gas so it can be safely moved through pipelines.
The attack started with a malicious link in a phishing email that allowed attackers to pivot from the facility's IT network to the facility's OT network, which is the operational technology hub of servers that control and monitor physical processes of the facility. With that, both the IT and OT networks were infected with what the advisory described as "commodity ransomware."
The infection didn't spread to programmable logic controllers, which actually control compression equipment, and it didn't cause the facility to lose control of operations, Tuesday's advisory said. The advisory explicitly said that "at no time did the threat actor obtain the ability to control or manipulate operations."
Still, the attack did knock out crucial control and communications gear that on-site employees depend on to monitor the physical processes.
[...] Facility personnel implemented a "deliberate and controlled shutdown to operations" that lasted about two days. "Geographically distinct compression facilities also had to halt operations because of pipeline transmission dependencies," the advisory said. As a result, the shutdown affected the entire "pipeline asset," not just the compression facility. Normal operations resumed after that.
Also at threatpost.
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printed from SoylentNews, US Natural Gas Operator Shuts Down for 2 Days after Being Infected by Ransomware on 2024-04-19 23:06:29