North Korean Malware Found at Indian Nuke Plant
A malware infection at one of India’s nuclear power plants has been confirmed by its owner, with researchers speculating that it is North Korean in origin.
News began circulating on social media earlier this week that the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) may have been hit by an attack. A third party contacted cyber-intelligence analyst Pukhraj Singh who in turn notified the country’s National Cyber Security Coordinator on September 3, he said.
He added that the malware in question was later identified by Kaspersky as Dtrack.
Although initially KNPP officials said an attack on the plant was “not possible,” they changed their tune in a letter dated Wednesday.
The government-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) released a statement saying the original reports had been correct, and handled by CERT-In when the organization was notified on September 4.
“The investigation revealed that the infected PC belonged to a user who was connected in the internet connected network used for administrative purposes,” it clarified. “This was isolated from the critical internal network. The networks are being continuously monitored. Investigation also confirms that the plant systems are not affected.”
Dtrack was first revealed in late September by Kaspersky as linked to the infamous Lazarus Group. It discovered over 180 samples of the malware, which is said to take advantage of weak network security, password management and a lack of traffic monitoring to deploy information stealing and remote access capabilities to victim systems.
It’s unclear what the attacker’s goals were in this raid — whether it was an accidental infection, a deliberately targeted multi-stage IP-stealing mission, or something more sinister still.
However, at the time of discovery, Singh tweeted about a causus belli (act of war) in Indian cyberspace. He later clarified this was a reference to a second, as-yet-unnamed, target.
“Actually, the other target scared the sh*t out of me. Scarier than KKNPP in some ways,” he said.
This post North Korean Malware Found at Indian Nuke Plant originally appeared on InfoSecurity Magazine.
