Russian-Linked Malware Targets U.S. Critical Infrastructure

Key Points

• PIPEDREAM is a malware with wartime capabilities, specifically built to target two popular programmable logic controllers (PLCs) that are predominantly used in the industrial control systems (ICSs) of U.S. electric, oil, and gas companies.
• While it was developed to target protocols in two specific PLCs, slight modifications have made it adaptable to a far wider range of PLCs with varying protocol languages, making it a threat to all critical infrastructure sectors rather than just energy alone.
• Although it was discovered before being executed in the wild, patching known vulnerabilities is a minimally effective defense against these attacks because this malware is intended to hijack devices and send legitimate commands in the protocols they use.