Industrial networks are soft targets for Trojans

Panda Labs has identified that over 50 per cent of the new malware to surface in 2006 were Trojans: and industrial networks are more liable to fall prey to modern viruses than new office systems

Panda Labs has identified that over 50 per cent of the new malware to surface in 2006 were Trojans.

With increased malware comes the added threat that networked programmes will become infected.

"Malware or a virus in an industrial production network could prevent a programme from executing a process change - the impact of which could be a failure to comply with key legislation, or worse a halt to an entire production line," confirms Joachim Fietz, CEO of industrial security specialist Innominate.

Trojans are often malicious programmes that install themselves or run surreptitiously on a victim's machine.

They do not run by themselves but entice the user to run the program masquerading as another programme altogether, or they may be packaged with hacked legitimate programmes that install the Trojan when the host programme is executed.

"One of the primary reasons that industrial networks are increasingly a target for virus attacks and hackers is that they represent easy prey compared to the increasingly secure office networks.

A common trait of industrial networks is that hardware and software components have evolved sporadically rather than as a result of a holistic planning exercise.

Given the need to ensure that the network is stable first and sophisticated second, many industrial networks run older versions of operating systems than their office network counterparts.

Consequently, industrial networks are less secure than other Ethernet networks running more up-to-date versions of software, which are more able to identify and block incoming threats.

Securing industrial networks requires a dedicated security approach safeguarding production systems directly," concludes Fietz.

Back to top