Honeypots Reveal Targeted SCADA Attacks

I recently came across an interesting article in SecurityWeek. Researchers set up honepots to see what types of attacks were being launched against SCADA installations.

It will come as no surprise that the largest proportion of attacks came from China (35%). The next largest set came from the US (19%), followed by Laos (12%).

Several attack vectors were detected, from attempting to access secure areas on the site to attacks on SCADA-specific protocols.

SCADA attacks are particularly dangerous because the impact can be outsized, due to the nature of equipment and environments that are managed by SCADA gear.

One possible attack vector for systems not connected to the public network is to target individuals who work with the equipment. This is the attack vector anticipated for vulnerabilities like the one found in Mitsubishi's MX ActiveX control recently.