Armageddon now or later? Industrial IoT is the new battleground as cyberwar heats up

The stage is set for the world to find out what might happen if petrochemical, gas, and power plant safety systems designed to prevent catastrophic accidents are disabled by malicious hackers.In summer 2017, a security consultant discovered malware that was set to deliberately override safety systems in a Saudi Arabia chemical facility. The malware, named Triton, exploited vulnerabilities in industrial internet of things-connected systems and has since been linked to probing attacks more recently seen in U.S. power grids.In October, security firm FireEye Inc. disclosed that it believed the malware had been developed by Russia, which previously disabled the power grid in the Ukraine using a similar approach. Meanwhile, security researchers at Dragos Inc. recently published findings that Triton was replicating new strains of code with the goal to disable a wider range of global systems.