Schneier - New Ransomware Targets Industrial Control Systems

EKANS is a new ransomware that targets industrial control systems:

But EKANS also uses another trick to ratchet up the pain: It's designed to terminate 64 different software processes on victim computers, including many that are specific to industrial control systems. That allows it to then encrypt the data that those control system programs interact with. While crude compared to other malware purpose-built for industrial sabotage, that targeting can nonetheless break the software used to monitor infrastructure, like an oil firm's pipelines or a factory's robots. That could have potentially dangerous consequences, like preventing staff from remotely monitoring or controlling the equipment's operation.

EKANS is actually the second ransomware to hit industrial control systems. According to Dragos, another ransomware strain known as Megacortex that first appeared last spring included all of the same industrial control system process-killing features, and may in fact be a predecessor to EKANS developed by the same hackers. But because Megacortex also terminated hundreds of other processes, its industrial-control-system targeted features went largely overlooked.

Speculation is that this is criminal in origin, and not the work of a government.

It's also the first malware that is named after a Pokémon character.



from Schneier on Security https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/02/new_ransomware_.html

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