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A new report has revealed the growing level of threats against industry and critical infrastructure in 2022, driven in part by Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and a growing level of sophistication in the malware employed by threat actors.
Chief among the threats is the PIPEDREAM malware, as deployed by the CHERNOVITE hacking group, which was first deployed in the first half of 2022.
“CHERNOVITE’S PIPEDREAM toolkit has the capabilities to impact tens of thousands [of] industrial devices that control critical infrastructure — devices that manage the electrical grid, oil and gas pipelines, water systems, and manufacturing plants,” Dragos researchers said in the company’s ICS/OT Cybersecurity Year in Review 2022 report.
“The toolkit focuses on three software components with capabilities that impact over 51,000 industrial vendor systems.”
But CHERNOVITE isn’t the only newcomer for 2022, according to Dragos.
BENTONITE, as designated by Dragos, takes advantage of targets of opportunity in the maritime oil and gas sector, as well as government and manufacturing. It has likely been active since 2021 and takes advantage of internet-exposed infrastructure and remote-access assets.
Once BENTONITE has access to a network, it deploys downloaders to contact its command and control servers and then downloads further malware to spy on the affected network while also infecting other systems laterally.
Other active threat groups targeting industrial systems include KOSTOVITE, KAMACITE, XENOTIME, ELECTRUM, ERYTHRITE, and WASSONITE.
Overall, Dragos saw a 27 per cent increase in its investigations into vulnerabilities in 2022 compared to 2021. The company also found that a whopping 83 per cent of all vulnerabilities can be found deep within industrial control systems and that 34 per cent of advisories contained errors — an improvement on previous years but still an alarming figure.
More worryingly, 2022 saw the number of advisories without patches increase by 6 per cent to 30 per cent.
You can learn more about the Dragos’ report and get a copy of your own at www.dragos.com/year-in-review.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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