According to recent report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT), several natural gas pipeline companies have been the targets of a series of attempted cyber intrusions.
In a statement, ICS-CERT said that an analysis of the malware and artifacts associated with the attacks have been identified as being related to a single campaign with spear-phishing activity dating back to December. Spear-phishing involves sending fraudulent emails to specific organizations or personnel in an attempt to gain unauthorized access to their systems or data.
ICS-CERT said that the campaign targeted a variety of personnel within these organizations; however, the agency noted that number of persons targeted appears to have been tightly focused.
"In addition, the e-mails have been convincingly crafted to appear as though they were sent from a trusted member internal to the organization," the agency said in the statement.
The agency said that it has issued an alert about the attack to the US-CERT Control Systems Center secure portal library, as well as to other organizations and agencies involved in the sector.
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