{"id":254,"date":"2023-12-20T17:06:05","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T17:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cisworks.com\/?p=254"},"modified":"2023-12-20T17:06:05","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T17:06:05","slug":"new-type-of-cyberattack-known-as-killware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cisworks.com\/new-type-of-cyberattack-known-as-killware\/","title":{"rendered":"New type of cyberattack known as Killware"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Given the surge of incidents within the past decade, many people are becoming familiar with\u00a0ransomware\u00a0and data breaches. However, a new type of cyberattack known as killware has emerged in recent years, and it\u2019s now a major security issue for organizations. But what does the term \u201ckillware\u201d actually mean? Let\u2019s take a look:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Killware and industries that are vulnerable to these attacks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Security Magazine\u00a0describes killware as a cyberattack that is deployed with the intent of producing real-life risk to communities through the manipulation of operational technology (OT). Put simply, killware attacks can be lethal or physically damaging to human life because they target critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, suppose that a city\u2019s public transportation system gets hacked, and services are halted. The transit company can handle the situation by fulfilling the attackers\u2019 ransom request so that public safety isn\u2019t endangered, but it\u2019s likely that someone may get injured while the services are stopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As businesses continue to digitalize operations, threat actors will have more opportunities to execute killware attacks given their ability to access systems more easily. The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cybersecurityconnect.com.au\/critical-infrastructure\/7241-department-of-homeland-security-killware-an-emerging-threat\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">U.S. Department of Homeland Security<\/a>&nbsp;(DHS) suggests that hospitals, power grids, banks, police departments, etc. are considered primary killware targets because thousands of people can be put at risk. Essentially, highly networked industries and organizations are more susceptible to these types of attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Killware vs. malware: What\u2019s the difference?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Both killware and\u00a0malware\u00a0can seem fairly similar in nature, however, they\u2019re different in terms of their end goals and the\u00a0ways in which they are defined. Different forms of malware are typically defined based on the tactic used (e.g.,\u00a0phishing\u00a0or crypto jacking), whereas killware is generally defined by its ultimate outcome and any type of method such as ransomware can be used in the execution process. In addition, most cybercriminals undertake malware campaigns hoping for monetary gain, but killware attacks are designed to inflict physical harm on others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Given the surge of incidents within the past decade, many people are becoming familiar with\u00a0ransomware\u00a0and data breaches. However, a new type of cyberattack known as killware has emerged in recent years, and it\u2019s now a major security issue for organizations. But what does the term \u201ckillware\u201d actually mean? Let\u2019s take a look: Killware and industries [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[27,26],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cisworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cisworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cisworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cisworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cisworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cisworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"https:\/\/cisworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cisworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cisworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cisworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cisworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}