Gas Refineries On Alert With Release of Security Flaw

[Ehtyar]

Gas refineries are on alert after a security researcher released an exploit for a widely used software program.

Gasoline refineries, manufacturing plants and other critical facilities that rely on computerized control systems just became more vulnerable to tampering or sabotage with the release of attack code that exploits a security flaw in a widely used piece of software.

The exploit code, published over the weekend as a module to the Metasploit penetration testing tool kit, attacks a vulnerability that resides in CitectSCADA, software used to manage industrial control mechanisms known as SCADA, or Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition, systems. In June, the manufacturer of the program, Australia-based Citect, and Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) in the US, Argentina and Australia warned the flawed software could put companies in the aerospace, manufacturing and petroleum industries at risk from outsiders or disgruntled employees.

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Ehtyar.