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Hackers take out German steel factory

by on22 December 2014


Paper kills rock

Hackers managed to access production networks at a German steel maker, allowing them to tamper with the controls of a blast furnace. According to a German government report, published by the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), it was a rare case where a digital attack actually caused physical damage.

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. Spear phishing involves the use of email that appears to come from within an organisation. After the system was compromised, individual components or even entire systems started to fail frequently.

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.”

 

Last modified on 28 December 2014
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