Security News > 2020 > February > US Govt Warns Critical Industries After Ransomware Hits Gas Pipeline Facility
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency earlier today issued a warning to all industries operating critical infrastructures about a new ransomware threat that if left unaddressed could have severe consequences.
The advisory comes in response to a cyberattack targeting an unnamed natural gas compression facility that employed spear-phishing to deliver ransomware to the company's internal network, encrypting critical data and knocking servers out of operation for almost two days.
As ransomware attacks continue to escalate in frequency and scale, the new development is yet another indication that phishing attacks continue to be an effective means to bypass security barriers and that hackers don't always need to exploit security vulnerabilities to breach organizations.
Cybersecurity firm Dragos issued an assessment on Wednesday linking the attack on the facility to an alert put out by the US Coast Guard in December.
The Ryuk ransomware infection had forced the facility to shut down for 30 hours, disrupting camera and physical access control systems, along with shutting down the entire corporate IT network at the facility.
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