Metals & Mining

October 21, 2022

Aurubis, Europe’s largest copper smelting company, sustained a cyberattack. The company believes it was targeted as part of a larger campaign against the metals sector. It responded by shutting down certain IT systems and isolating them from the Internet. Its core industrial processes have continued to function. “The production and environmental protection facilities at the smelter sites are running, and incoming and outgoing goods are also being maintained manually,” Aurubis said. “Transitional solutions are being implemented to make the company’s full services available to business partners again starting next week. Customers and suppliers can still reach their Aurubis contacts by phone.”

March 18, 2014

A German steel mill was targeted with malware that gave the attackers access to the business network and then to the SCADA/ICS network. The event was confirmed by the German government’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) in an IT security report. Attackers that appeared to particularly target industrial plant personnel, caused plant control components to fail, resulting in an uncontrolled furnace, which eventually caused physical damage to the steel factory.

According to a study issued by the SANS Institute, the hackers used spear-phishing attempts to obtain access to the steel mill network. The email most likely contained an attached document that, when opened, activated the malicious malware onto the system. The malware then constructed a remote connection point to establish a bridge between the attackers and the targeted industrial network by exploiting vulnerabilities in a targeted operating system. The hackers were able to modify the programmable logic controllers (PLCs) at this stage, jeopardizing the furnace’s operations, which further lead to its own physical damage.