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Crime Security IT

Hackers of Ukrainian Utilities Probably Hit Mining and Railroad Targets, Too (csoonline.com) 21

itwbennett writes: Trend Micro said Thursday that its latest technical research shows that the same malware — dubbed BlackEnergy and KillDisk — were likely used in attacks on a mining company and a railway operator that preceded the devastating power-company hacks and that those earlier attacks may have been test runs. 'The malware used in the attacks, known as Black Energy, has been linked by the security firm iSight Partners to a group nicknamed the Sandworm Team, which is suspected to be from Russia,' writes Jeremy Kirk.
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Hackers of Ukrainian Utilities Probably Hit Mining and Railroad Targets, Too

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  • When there's no electricity.

    • by KGIII ( 973947 )

      I like learning the history of old towns and I often find books that have recounting of old happenings from historical societies. I have one such book about a town in Livermore Falls, Maine. I don't have it with me and it's probably not something you can order online. It's fairly interesting. Well, I think so.

      It seems that at one time, back in the 1930s, they built a bank in town. The thing is, the bank was on one side of the railroad tracks and the cops were on the other side of the railroad tracks. Every

  • by tetraverse ( 4409445 ) on Friday February 12, 2016 @11:56AM (#51495029)
    First off, the Ukraine powercuts were caused by old fashioned sabotage. Secondly no amount of malware can knock out the power generators as they are not controlled by SCADA units running Microsoft windows and directly connected to the Internet. ref [nytimes.com]
    --

    PROTHERO: Do you believe this crap, Dascombe?

    DASCOMBE: It's not our job to believe it, Lewis. Our job is to tell the people --

    PROTHERO: "Exactly what they tell us." I Know but do you think that people will believe it?

    DASCOMBE: They will if it's you that's telling it to them. Now let's try it again
    .
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Your link is to a Crimea power outage in November. This is about an outage in Ukraine in December. You're the one spewing crap.

      • by nemyax ( 1376001 )

        Your link is to a Crimea power outage in November. This is about an outage in Ukraine in December.

        The December attacks didn't come out of the blue. They came after Ukrainian nationalists blew up the power lines running to Crimea (and a couple of Ukrainian towns while they were at it) in November, causing a near-total blackout. Russia has provided a power line since, and there's another one in the works, but the peninsula is still short on electricity.

      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Really it is all about corruption gone out of control. The likely reality most of the hacking was simply insider actions paid for by outside interests, outside of those companies far more than outside of that country. For reasons of simple petty revenge, economic advantage by crippling competitors or protection and extortion rackets. Yeah Ukraine government was a corrupt spos (which is why Russia was so happy to see it gone, regardless of any public claims they make) prior to US led insurrection and the in

        • by nemyax ( 1376001 )

          Yeah Ukraine government was a corrupt spos (which is why Russia was so happy to see it gone, regardless of any public claims they make)

          These particular claims were quite sincere, and the Russian authorities really weren't chuffed about the situation. They didn't have a problem with someone being corrupt; what kind of problem is that? On the contrary, if your puppet is a greedy mofo, it's a chance for you to share in their lucrative little schemes.

          • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

            You kind of have to think back to the Soviet era. Decades upon decades of claims that they were wonderful and perfect and all of it memeber countries were wonderful and perfect. Hence a deeply flawed flase image was create about the nature of those countries. The Soviet Union spent decades making the Ukraine look better than it actually was. How bad was it, the Soviet Union had to slice bits off Russia and shove it into the Ukraine in order to try and stabilise it, think about that, for a moment. Russia ha

  • Yep, Russia did it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12, 2016 @12:00PM (#51495063)

    Really, Russia. No evidence, but its Russia.

    Man, slashdot sounding more and more like joining the rest of the presstitute media. Stick to reporting FACTS

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by lhowaf ( 3348065 )
      There IS evidence but it hasn't been brought forward because there's no real upside to getting dead.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Given the motives currently known about and the limitations of available qualified workers we have 3 reasonable options for who did it
      1. Russia to hurt their "enemies"
      2. Russian associated "patriot" crackers from a large sized criminal organisation, to hurt their nations "enemies"
      3. Opposing governments who want Russia to be blamed for this action

      Given the risks involved in 3 and the way it would raise the stakes in terms of retaliation 1&2 seem much more likely than 3.
      Do you have real reasons to conclu

      • by jeneag ( 441998 )

        How about point #4.

        #4 Ukrainian government did it in order to make gain more hatred towards Russia from Ukrainian people and justify obligatory military drafts. They also did it because US-installed coup government feels that world is tired of them whining and begging for money, and by doing so they can once again say that Russia is an aggressor that declared war on Ukraine.

        Given the dire situation in Ukraine, where people now earn less then poorest countries in Africa, the only drum they can beat on d

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