EKANS Ransomware Raises Industrial-Control Worries

A fairly unsophisticated ransomware attack has raised a few eyebrows among security researchers for its ability to force computers to stop specific activities, or processes, related to industrial control systems, critical-infrastructure security firm Dragos stated in a report published on February 3.In the past, ransomware has generally caused disruption in industrial control system (ICS) environments as a side effect of the malware's destructive activity — encrypting data would cause some software to fail, causing outages. Although a relatively primitive attack, the EKANS ransomware actively targets certain products common in ICS environments, says Joe Slowik, an adversary hunter with Dragos.