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Robert M. Lee

Common Analyst Mistakes and Claims of Energy Company Targeting Malware

A new blog post by SentinelOne made an interesting claim recently regarding a “sophisticated malware campaign specifically targeting at least one European energy company.”  More extraordinary though was the claim by the company that this find might indicate something much more serious: “which could either work to extract data or insert the malware to potentially…

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Hype, Logical Fallacies, and SCADA Cyber Attacks

For a few years now I’ve spent some energy focusing on calling out hyped up stories of threats to critical infrastructure and dispelling false stories about cyber attacks. There have been a lot of reasons for this including trying to make sure that the investments we make in the community go against real threats and…

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Detecting the S7 Worm and Similar Capabilities

I first posted the following on the SANS ICS blog here An article came out on May 5th titled “Daisy-chained research spells malware worm hell for power plants and other utilities” with the subtitle of “World’s first PLC worm spreads like cancer”. Having been on the receiving end of sensationalized headlines before I empathize with…

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The Problems with Seeking and Avoiding True Attribution to Cyber Attacks

Attribution to cyber attacks means different things to different audiences. In some cases analysts only care about grouping multiple intrusions together to identify an adversary group or their campaign. This helps analysts identify and search for patterns. In this case analysts often use made up names such as “Sandworm” just to group activity together. To…

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Context for the Claim of a Cyber Attack on the Israeli Electric Grid

This blog was first posted on the SANS ICS blog here.   Dr. Yuval Steinitz, the Minister of National Infrastructure, Energy, and Water resources, announced today at the CyberTech Conference in Tel Aviv that a “severe cyber attack” was ongoing on the Israel National Electric Authority. His statements were delivered as a closing session at…

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