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A plant of an unmentioned nature and location (some believe it's in the Middle East) was forced to shut down after a hack targeted its industrial safety system. It marks the first report of a safety system breach at an industrial plant by hackers, who have in recent years placed increasing attention on breaking into utilities, factories, and other types of critical infrastructure, cyber experts said.
Compromising a safety system could let hackers shut them down in advance of attacking other parts of an industrial plant, potentially preventing operators from identifying and halting destructive attacks. In the incident, hackers used sophisticated malware to take remote control of a workstation and then sought to reprogram controllers used to identify safety issues. Some controllers entered a failsafe mode, which caused related processes to shut down.
Compromising a safety system could let hackers shut them down in advance of attacking other parts of an industrial plant, potentially preventing operators from identifying and halting destructive attacks. In the incident, hackers used sophisticated malware to take remote control of a workstation and then sought to reprogram controllers used to identify safety issues. Some controllers entered a failsafe mode, which caused related processes to shut down.