By Antone Gonsalves
 
Russian hackers who broke into the networks of Western oil and gas companies used techniques that companies can detect and oftentimes defend against, experts say.
The Russian Federation-based group compromised corporate systems by planting malware in technology suppliers' software and compromising websites visited by energy company employees, Symantec said in a recent report on the attacks.
 
The attackers, which have been operating at least since 2011, were bent on stealing intellectual property and other sensitive information mostly from energy grid operators, major electricity generators, oil pipeline operators and industrial equipment providers. The majority of the targets were in the U.S., Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey and Poland.
The attackers' favorite malware was Backdoor.Oldrea, also known as Havex or the Energetic Bear RAT. Oldrea, custom malware either developed by the group or for it, acted as a back door that let the hackers extract data and install additional software.
The majority of command and control servers appeared to be hosted on compromised computers running content management systems. Oldrea has a basic control panel that lets an authenticated user download a compressed version of data stolen from each victim.
 
Full Article
 
An interesting article discussing way to avoid the attacks.

By Jamie Crawford, National Security Producerupdated 6:57 PM EST, Thu November 20, 2014 Washington (CNN) -- China and "probably one or two other" countries have the capacity to shut down the nation's power grid and other critical infrastructure through a cyber attack, the head of the National Security Agency told a Congressional panel Thursday.
Admiral Michael Rogers, who also serves the dual role as head of U.S. Cyber Command, said the United States has detected malware from China and elsewhere on U.S. computers systems that affect the daily lives of every American.
"It enables you to shut down very segmented, very tailored parts of our infrastructure that forestall the ability to provide that service to us as citizens," Rogers said in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee.
Rogers said such attacks are part of the "coming trends" he sees based on "reconnaissance" currently taking place that nation-states, or other actors may use to exploit vulnerabilities in U.S. cyber systems.
 
Full Article and video.

I agree David. The point is, previously if a country wanted to take over another country there had to be an invasion but now it can all be done from a desk many miles away.