US AGENCIES: INDUSTRIAL CONTROL SYSTEM MALWARE DISCOVERED

Multiple U.S. government agencies issued a joint alert this week warning of the discovery of a suite of malicious cyber tools created by unnamed advanced threat actors that are capable of sabotaging the energy sector and other critical industries.

The public alert from the Energy and Homeland Security Departments, the FBI and National Security Agency did not name the actors or offer details on the find. But their private sector cybersecurity partners said the evidence suggests Russia is behind the industrial control system-disrupting tools — and that they were configured to initially target North American energy concerns.

One of the cybersecurity firms involved, Mandiant, called the tools “exceptionally rare and dangerous.”

In a report, it called the tools’ functionality was “consistent with the malware used in Russia’s prior physical attacks” though it acknowledged that the evidence linking it to Moscow is “largely circumstantial.”

The CEO of another government partner, Robert M. Lee of Dragos, agreed that a state actor almost certainly crafted the malware, which he said was configured to initially target liquified natural gas and electric power sites in North America.

Lee referred questions on the state actor’s identity to the U.S. government and would not explain how the malware was discovered other than to say it was caught “before an attack was attempted.”