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Confrontations between countries no longer only take place in the physical world, in this new decade, these confrontations also move to the cyber world. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is one of the clearest examples. Among the events that have taken place is the security incident known as Industroyer2, which affected an electrical supplier in Ukraine. The Industroyer2 is the evolution of its predecessor, the malware known as Industroyer, which was able to affect multiple protocols of industrial control systems during its execution. This new variant of the malware focuses on a particular communications protocol, IEC-104, which is widely used in Europe and the Middle East to monitor and control the power system via the TCP/IP communications protocol.

This post explains the infrastructure of command and control (C&C), describing what an attack consists of, related terminology, actions undertaken by attackers, models, general function and preventative measures, detection and response to this threat.

The security of control systems can be threatened from different aspects, with the end device being the most important attack vector. With this in mind, the IEC, within the 62443 standard, wanted to emphasise devices by preparing a document exclusively concerning their security: IEC62443-4-2. This document contains different technical requirements to improve the security of the types of assets that can be found in a control system.

An adequate level of cybersecurity and cyberresilience is essential to keep assets safe from possible cyberattacks. This is why INCIBE-CERT has listed a set of measures and good practices that are valid for any need that affects cybersecurity.