SCADA malware discovered in European energy company

For more information on this vulnerability, please refer to the SCADA/SCADAs tags.

A new piece of industrial control malware has been discovered. Dubbed SFG, Sentinel One Labs discovered the piece on the information networks of a yet-unnamed European energy company.

It appears quite sophisticated. It not only collects information on the infected system but opens a backdoor through which a destructive payload could be launched, “to potentially shut down an energy grid”.

A New Map for the Middle East?

On May 16, 1916, representatives of Great Britain and France signed an agreement that had been negotiated by Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot to divide up the Middle East into British and French spheres of influence after the end of the Great War and the destruction of the Ottoman Empire. The Sykes-Picot Agreement, now 100 years old, has been denounced ever since for perpetuating a supposedly artificial division of the Middle East into unpopular nation states whose existence only fuels conflicts. Many now suggest that it is time to discard Sykes-Picot in order to solve the region’s myriad problems.

Russia´s cyber-operations alter balance of power – tougher response called for

Russia is alterering the balance of power with superior human resources in the cyber-realm and a strategy and will to used them offensively, including via proxies – and lack of western response encourages escalation says Jarno Limnéll.

Cyber-narrative in the United States has changed during the last year. China and its economic cyber-espionage has been in the centre of narrative for years, but now politicians and especially the intelligence community emphasise Russia´s cyber-threat.

“Russian cyber-attacks rank as the greatest threat to the United States´ national security”, the US director of national Intelligence James Clapper has stated. Admiral Michael Rogers, director of NSA and commander of the US Cyber Command has publicly estimated that, “Russia has very capable cyber-operators who can and do work with speed, precision and stealth.” These statements were not made by coincidence.

House cybersecurity chairman warns: First Sony, next the electric grid, Wall Street

Don’t limit the list of potential enemy nation-states to just N. Korea and Iran. China and Russia both have the capability and are known to have already probed American cyber defenses. By the time legislation is passed, which can sometimes take months in itself, or by the time something is implemented, it could be years later — which is too little, too late. Global Geopolitics has warned about cyberwarfare and its danger to America for years.

 

Rep. Patrick Meehan, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, said the Sony attack and potential for a more widespread Internet invasion by U.S. enemies demands that President Obama sign pending cybersecurity legislation into law and look to other efforts to protect homegrown technology.

…

“American businesses, financial networks, government agencies and infrastructure systems like power grids are at continual risk. They’re targeted not just by lone hackers and criminal syndicates, but by well-funded nation-states like North Korea and Iran. A lack of consequences for when nation states carry out cyberattacks has only emboldened these adversaries to do more harm,” he added.

The U.S. government thinks China could take down the power grid

Washington (CNN) — China and “probably one or two other” countries have the capacity to shut down the nation’s power grid and other critical infrastructure through a cyber attack, the head of the National Security Agency told a Congressional panel Thursday.

Admiral Michael Rogers, who also serves the dual role as head of U.S. Cyber Command, said the United States has detected malware from China and elsewhere on U.S. computers systems that affect the daily lives of every American.

“It enables you to shut down very segmented, very tailored parts of our infrastructure that forestall the ability to provide that service to us as citizens,” Rogers said in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee.

Merkel Backs Two-Speed Europe With Core Euro in Poke at Cameron

As has been discussed in previous posts, Europe is looking like it’s heading to a two tier system economically and politically. Top tier nations will be seperated into a collective of 10 or so while the remaining will reside within a periphery system, most likely for providing cheap labor. What’s also seems will happen is the creation of a two tier currency system to go along with the two tier economy. For example we could see a Euro A class and a Euro B class form of currency. Another future possibility is the return of the Deutschmark with the core nations formally adopting it while the periphery nations holding on to the Euro. It would likely be the best option with the least damage should Europe continue pushing for further integration. Meanwhile, resistance from Great Britain indicates not all are willing to subjugate themselves to Brussels/Germany. In fact, British Prime Minister Cameron suggests this is an opportunity for the unwilling to go back to the way they were before the EU formed: Sovereign nations.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that she supports a two-speed European Union, with a core group in the euro pressing ahead with deeper integration and the U.K. among the others relegated to Europe’s margins. Merkel’s comments, made as she prepares to host British Prime Minister David Cameron in Berlin today, underscore her differences with the U.K. leader, who is pressing for more aggressive action by euro countries to counter the financial crisis roiling the 17-nation currency zone. “Those in a monetary union will have to move closer together,” Merkel said in an interview with ARD television broadcast today. “We have to be open. We always have to make it possible for everyone” to join. “But we must not stop because one or the other don’t want to come along just yet.” … “We need more Europe, we need not only a monetary union, but we also need a so-called fiscal union, in other words more joint budget policy,” Merkel said. “And we need most of all a political union, that means we need to gradually give competencies to Europe and give Europe control.” Ceding more control to Brussels is anathema to many lawmakers in Cameron’s Conservative Party, more than a quarter of whom defied the government in October and voted in favor of a referendum on continuing British membership of the EU. Cameron said the following month that the euro crisis offered an opportunity for powers to “ebb back” from Europe to nation states. “We should look skeptically at grand plans and utopian visions,” Cameron said then. “We’ve a right to ask what the European Union should and shouldn’t do.” Merkel, in her television interview, said that EU leaders at a summit later this month will discuss a plan to transform the EU into a political union. Still, a breakthrough can’t be achieved at just one summit, she said. “The economic and political division between the Anglo- Saxon world and the ‘Germano-sphere’ is increasing,” Fredrik Erixon, head of the European Centre for International Political Economy in Brussels, said in a telephone interview.

Full article: Merkel Backs Two-Speed Europe With Core Euro in Poke at Cameron (Bloomberg)