[ISN] Malware Attacks Decline In SCADA, Industrial Control Systems, Report Says

http://www.darkreading.com/insider-threat/167801100/security/attacks-breaches/229300509/malware-attacks-decline-in-scada-industrial-control-systems-report-says.html

By Kelly Jackson Higgins
Darkreading 
March 07, 2011

Malware accounts for close to one-third of all real-world industrial 
control system security incidents recorded in the Security Incidents 
Organization's Repository of Industrial Security Incidents (RISI) 
database, according to a new report published by the SIO. But while 
malware incidents showed a marked decline since 2003 among the 60 
incidents chronicled in the report, the advent of Stuxnet is expected to 
change all of that.

Eric Byres, author of the 2011 "Report on Cyber Security Incidents and 
Trends Affecting Industrial Control Systems Resulting from Malware 
Infections" report and CTO with Byres Security, says the reason for the 
overall decline in malware-borne attacks and infections on power plants 
and other industrial control systems is that "noisy" malware is out -- 
and stealthy, targeted malware is in. Many process control firms learned 
the hard way after SQL Slammer, Sasser, and Blaster hit the industry 
hard, and finally started instituting anti-malware, intrusion detection, 
network segmentation, and other security measures, according to the 
report.

While many of the process control system incidents included in the 
report -- which provides a rare inside look at this traditionally 
cloistered industry -- were from old-school SQL Slammer and other 
high-profile attacks, these incidents were mostly inadvertent and 
definitely not money-making. "The stuff made a heck of a racket and was 
wide-scale destructive. But there was no money to be made," Byres says. 
"The money-making [attacks] are focused on advanced persistent threats 
... We are starting to see very quiet, subtle attacks like Stuxnet, 
Ghostnet, and Night Dragon," which are more effective and lucrative, he 
says.

"Now they are stealing stuff and selling it," he adds.

[...]


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