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Hacking Group Linked To Chinese Army Caught Attacking Dummy Water Plant
holy_calamity writes "MIT Technology Review reports that APT1, the China-based hacking group said to steal data from U.S. companies, has been caught taking over a decoy water plant control system. The honeypot mimicked the remote access control panels and physical control system of a U.S. municipal water plant. The decoy was one of 12 set up in 8 countries around the world, which together attracted more than 70 attacks, 10 of which completely compromised the control system. China and Russia were the leading sources of the attacks. The researcher behind the study says his results provide the first clear evidence that people actively seek to exploit the many security problems of industrial systems."
The plant is real and the headline is a cover up/reverse sneak - because panic. But hey, if it turns out to be a honeypot, don't expect it to work twice :)
Spoof the interface to make the attackers believe they are attacking a foreign industrial plant.
In reality, they are attacking the utility plant located down street based on WiFi location.
The main purpose of the honeypot system is to obfuscate the true location of the target (the attackers own infrastructure).
Then watch hilarity ensue.
Defense systems would be great. You could get countries to nuke themselves using their own cyber ops team.
It's understandable that those systems need to be connected to each other, but in that case they should have their own, completely isolated network to do so, preferably one that is utterly incapable of connecting to the Internet at large.
But DUDE!, If we did this, we'd like, have to connect all those power grids with, like - wires! Where we gonna get that?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Pooh sets up a honeypot; finds most attacks come from himself and bees. Oh bother.
I swear that last sentence was copied verbatim out of a PowerPoint slide our CIO sent around...
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.