Cyberattack On German Steel Factory Causes 'Massive Damage'

An anonymous reader writes: In a rare case of an online security breach causing real-world destruction, a German steel factory has been severely damaged after its networks were compromised. "The attack used spear phishing and sophisticated social engineering techniques to gain access to the factory's office networks, from which access to production networks was gained. ... After the system was compromised, individual components or even entire systems started to fail frequently. Due to these failures, one of the plant's blast furnaces could not be shut down in a controlled manner, which resulted in 'massive damage to plant,' the BSI said, describing the technical skills of the attacker as 'very advanced.'" The full report (PDF) is available in German.

Comments

Maybe not the only one

[WoOS]

Googling for "steel furnance shutdown" finds more reports on unexpected shutdowns this year.
Two in Ashland, Ky, and one or two somewhere in Indiana and one in Bhopal, India. Note that they all seem to have occured in June/July.

Maybe some competitor trying to up his margin by reducing supply?