Operational Technology | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Cybersecurity researchers have elaborated a novel attack technique that weaponizes programmable logic controllers ( PLCs ) to gain an initial foothold in engineering workstations and subsequently invade the operational technology (OT) networks. Dubbed " Evil PLC " attack by industrial security firm Claroty, the issue impacts engineering workstation software from Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric, GE, B&R, Xinje, OVARRO, and Emerson. Programmable logic controllers are a crucial component of industrial devices that control manufacturing processes in critical infrastructure sectors. PLCs, besides orchestrating the automation tasks, are also configured to start and stop processes and generate alarms. It's hence not surprising that the entrenched access provided by PLCs have made the machines a focus of sophisticated attacks for more than a decade, starting from  Stuxnet to PIPEDREAM  (aka INCONTROLLER), with the goal of causing physical disruptions.  "The

Nearly five dozen security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in devices from 10 operational technology (OT) vendors due to what researchers call are "insecure-by-design practices." Collectively dubbed  OT:ICEFALL  by Forescout, the 56 issues span as many as 26 device models from Bently Nevada, Emerson, Honeywell, JTEKT, Motorola, Omron, Phoenix Contact, Siemens, and Yokogawa. "Exploiting these vulnerabilities, attackers with network access to a target device could remotely execute code, change the logic, files or firmware of OT devices, bypass authentication, compromise credentials, cause denials of service or have a variety of operational impacts," the company said in a technical report. These vulnerabilities could have disastrous consequences considering the impacted products are widely employed in critical infrastructure industries such as oil and gas, chemical, nuclear, power generation and distribution, manufacturing, water treatment and distribution, min

It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for ways to reduce risk while improving security posture, but many approaches offer piecemeal solutions – zeroing in on one particular element of the evolving threat landscape challenge – missing the forest for the trees.  In the last few years, Exposure Management has become known as a comprehensive way of reigning in the chaos, giving organizations a true fighting chance to reduce risk and improve posture. In this article I'll cover what Exposure Management is, how it stacks up against some alternative approaches and why building an Exposure Management program should be on  your 2024 to-do list. What is Exposure Management?  Exposure Management is the systematic identification, evaluation,