Cyber-criminals are going after industrial controls, and a new type of malware could bring big problems.
Researchers at FireEye have discovered a new variant of malware designed to attack industrial control systems (ICS) that manage the workings of critical infrastructure but aren't sure exactly what they've found. On June 2, the team released a breakdown of the malware -- which they dubbed IRONGATE -- in an effort to raise awareness in the cybersecurity community and get feedback on where it might have come from and what exactly its purpose is.
While researching malicious code targeting systems written in Python, researchers with the FireEye Labs Advanced Reverse Engineering (FLARE) team discovered two malware samples that included a suspicious extension labeled SCADA.exe, seemingly in reference to supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems used in ICS.