Trend Micro warns of ransomware targeting industrial control systems

Latest report highlights that India has the most Coinminer, Equated malware, and WannaCry ransomware detections

Hyderabad: India has the most Coinminer, Equated malware, and WannaCry ransomware detections. Also, legacy malware, particularly worms in removable drives and file infecting viruses, had the most detections in India, China, Taiwan and the US, according to the latest report unveiled by Trend Micro.

Coinminer is a malware where a file-based cryptocurrency miner runs on your system that consumes enormous CPU resources, making it sluggish. Equated malware arrives on a system as a file dropped by other malware or as a file downloaded unknowingly by users when visiting malicious sites. WannaCry ransomware targets database files, multimedia and archive files.

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The Trend Micro report highlights the growing risk of downtime and sensitive data theft from ransomware attacks aimed at industrial facilities.

Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are a crucial element of utility plants, factories and other facilities, which are used to monitor and control industrial processes across IT-OT networks. If ransomware finds its way onto these systems, it could knock out operations for days and increase the risk of designs, programs, and other sensitive documents finding their way onto the dark web.

According to the ‘2020 Report on Threats Affecting ICS Endpoints’ by Trend Micro, the US is by far the country with the most ransomware detections affecting ICSs, with India, Taiwan, and Spain a far second.

“ICSs are incredibly challenging to secure, leaving plenty of gaps in protection that threat actors are clearly exploiting with growing determination. Using malware detections as one of the criteria of IT/OT networks’ cybersecurity readiness can improve the organisations’ security posture and, in turn, better protect ICS endpoints. This prevents unintended downtime and the loss of view and control,” said Vijendra Katiyar, country manager, India & SAARC, Trend Micro.

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