New cyber threat groups targeting OT identified and named.
Ransomware attacks aimed at industrial entities rose by 87 percent, compared with figures from 2023.
According to research from Dragos, operational technology and industrial control systems infrastructure have been targeted by 60 percent more ransomware operations last year.
Reported by SC US, Dragos identified two new OT cyber threat groups, Bauxite and Graphite. According to Dragos, Bauxite has been implicated in multiple global campaigns targeting industrial entities and devices.
Graphite targets companies in the energy, oil and gas, logistics, and government sectors across Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The group has strong technical overlaps with Russia-based APT28 and focuses on organizations with relevance to the military situation in Ukraine. Observable since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 three years ago, Dragos said this focus may indicate a specialized subunit or an expansion of mission goals.
Written by
Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
