Oil, Gas Tech Startup Faces Threat in Fundraising

A Fortune 1000 company in the chemical manufacturing space detected and stopped the watering hole attack against the targeted start-up with Bromium’s software, said Kashyap. The attack technique used in this situation is indicative of some of the latest tradecraft that is making it more difficult to defeat cyberthreats with traditional defenses, said Kashyap. By placing malicious code on the company’s website, it allowed the hackers to not only access all of the start-up’s intellectual property, but meant that a number of visitors who checked out the site after the funding news faced risk of infection.

“Attackers are surfacing in areas where people least expect it,” said Kashyap.

Attackers also are targeting end-users, preying on victims’ specific interests, and exploiting apps that companies must permit to run on nearly every device, such as browsers.

Kashyap said the oil and gas industry remains vulnerable to cyberattacks as it still employs a good deal of legacy SCADA equipment that is not up to standards in terms of security.

“The industry is already under attack, and we expect to find more and more evidence of attacks. If you have an IP address and intellectual property, you have to protect them.”

“The reality is that if we have something important, we have to be careful if we go online, given the way that the world is emerging and that there are no rigorous laws governing the Internet,” said Kashyap, adding that the company has captured evidence from the infected machine and is looking to identify the attacker.

Most cyberattackers are repackaging malware for deployment into the financial industry, and then repackaging it again for a cyberattack against an oil and gas company. In most cases, cyberattacks involve repackaged malware, but in some cases, malware is specifically written for a targeting a particular platform, such as the Stuxnet attack, said Kashyap.


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