VB2018 paper: Anatomy of an attack: detecting and defeating CRASHOVERRIDE

At VB2017 in Madrid,

ESET

researchers Anton Cherepanov and Robert Lipovsky presented a

last-minute paper

on Industroyer, a malware framework that was responsible for the December 2016 blackout in Ukraine.

The attack was perhaps less noteworthy for what it achieved (a relatively short blackout) than for the potential it signalled. Such was the premise of

Dragos

researcher Joe Slowik, who presented a full paper on the framework at VB2018 in Montreal.

The framework, which

Dragos

calls CRASHOVERRIDE (the name difference stems from a different opinion on its focus), includes very sophisticated ICS-specific malware but uses standard “living off the land” techniques to move within an infected network. In his paper, Joe explains in detail how the malware works and how it targets various protocols used to operate the electric grid.

Today we have published Joe’s paper in both

HTML

and

PDF

format. We have also uploaded the video of his presentation to our

YouTube

channel.

If you’re going to be at the RSA Conference in San Francisco this week, make sure you check out the

two talks

Joe will deliver there.

And of course, don’t forget that the

Call for Papers

for VB2019 remains open until the end of next week (deadline 17 March). Analyses of attacks against ICS, or tools to analyse or fight them, are very welcome.