PLC | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

When you read reports about cyber-attacks affecting operational technology (OT), it's easy to get caught up in the hype and assume every single one is sophisticated. But are OT environments all over the world really besieged by a constant barrage of complex cyber-attacks? Answering that would require breaking down the different types of OT cyber-attacks and then looking back on all the historical attacks to see how those types compare.  The Types of OT Cyber-Attacks Over the past few decades, there has been a growing awareness of the need for improved cybersecurity practices in IT's lesser-known counterpart, OT. In fact, the lines of what constitutes a cyber-attack on OT have never been well defined, and if anything, they have further blurred over time. Therefore, we'd like to begin this post with a discussion around the ways in which cyber-attacks can either target or just simply impact OT, and why it might be important for us to make the distinction going forward. Figure 1 Th...

Two new security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in Rockwell Automation's programmable logic controllers ( PLCs ) and engineering workstation software that could be exploited by an attacker to inject malicious code on affected systems and stealthily modify automation processes. The flaws have the potential to disrupt industrial operations and cause physical damage to factories in a manner similar to that of Stuxnet and the  Rogue7 attacks , operational technology security company Claroty said. "Programmable logic and predefined variables drive these [automation] processes, and changes to either will alter normal operation of the PLC and the process it manages," Claroty's Sharon Brizinov  noted  in a write-up published Thursday. The list of two flaws is below – CVE-2022-1161  (CVSS score: 10.0) – A remotely exploitable flaw that allows a malicious actor to write user-readable "textual" program code to a separate memory location from the executed c...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...