The news arrived in a tweet. On 6 January 2020, the researcher Vitali Kremez, from the Malware Hunter Team group announced the discovery of Snake (or Ekans), a ransomware program able to take down industrial networks and paralyse production lines.
This news caused quite a stir in the cyber community. However, Snake is
not the first ransomware program to target OT networks. Back in 2019,
the LockerGoga ransomware
program caused major disruption, particularly for the Norwegian
aluminium producer Norsk Hydro – jeopardising their operational
activities and causing serious financial losses. So why all the fuss
about Snake then? This is chiefly because this ransomware program is
believed to be able to attack even more services used only within
industrial networks. With the number of cyberattacks and their
complexity increasing, should we now expect industrial production to become a prime target for cyberattackers? After Industroyer, does the advent of Snake mark a new development in the field of cybersecurity for industrial systems?
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