In brief: the Gundremmingen nuclear power plant in Germany disclosed a malicious software infection including the Conficker and Ramnit malware. The infection occurred on systems used to help move nuclear fuel rods, Reuters reported.
Malware
Antivirus Players Vying for Industrial Control Systems Business
In-brief: news from incumbent endpoint protection firms Symantec and Kaspersky Lab that they are ramping up efforts to sell their wares into industrial control systems environments suggests that the death of anti virus may have been greatly exaggerated.
Blurred Lines: Sophisticated Hacks Building On Commodity Crime Tools
The information security industry has long operated with the premise of two, very different kinds of threats: indiscriminate, cyber criminal activity aimed at making money quick and sophisticated, targeted attacks intended to provide long term competitive advantage to another company (or economy), disrupt the operation of the target or provide a (future) strategic advantage in some kind of cyber conflict. But new research from FireEye suggests that the lines between sophisticated and unsophisticated cyber operations are blurred, making it hard for organizations to know if a given infection is merely bad luck, or evidence of a larger and more dangerous operation. Writing about a new financially motivated hacking crew called Fin6, FireEye said that the group, which targeted point-of-sale systems made off with “millions of payment card numbers.” Still, FireEye said that it couldn’t figure out how the group compromised its victims. “In Mandiant’s investigations of FIN6, the group already […]
FBI Warns of Smart Farm Risk
In-brief:Farmers who are looking to make better use of technology need to start paying attention to security, or suffer the same fate as industries such as healthcare, the FBI warned in an industry note.
Updated: Vulnerability on 3m Systems Could Spread Ransomware To Schools
In-brief: Researchers at Cisco Systems said that they had identified more than 3 million “at risk” application servers running a vulnerable component that has been linked to ransomware infections. More than 1,600 of those systems have already been compromised, including many school libraries. Updated to add comment from Follett Corp. PFR 4/18/2016
