How ARCON Privileged Access Management could have averted this Nuclear Plant disaster

Cyber criminals have turned their eyes on nuclear power plants now. Another malware attack struch hard in one of the nuclear plants in the southern part of India recently. It has not only disrupted the generation of electricity in the plant, but also raised burning questions related to secure privileged access.

Forensic investigation by the Cyber Crime department has revealed that there was a malware attack (named as DTrack) in one of the systems connected to the internet. This malware was designed for data extraction and it was linked with one of the hackers group in North Korea. The plant officials confirmed that this incident has forced them to keep their IT operations isolated from the crucial internal network for quite some time. The investigation has also revealed that the hacker stealthily gained access to a privileged account in the network and implanted the malware to breach the confidential data from the system. Needless to mention, this incident has sent warning signals to the other departments of the plant including other nuclear plants to evaluate, re-evaluate and reinforce the privileged account security to avoid any similar catastrophic incidents.

In large IT setups where the number of privileged accounts are high, it becomes a challenge for the IT administrators to manage, control and monitor the user activities happening in the IT network. Organized cyber-criminals can wreak havoc to organizations if critical systems lack a robust authorization and authentication mechanism. Any malefactor could bring the enterprise IT network to a standstill if privileged accounts are targeted. Once a privileged account is breached, cyber criminals move laterally inside the network to get hold of privileged credentials to hijack IT systems or steal confidential data.

How ARCON PAM could have averted disaster

ARCON offers a secure gateway wherein all privileged tasks happen via single console with unified access control policy. As every privileged access to target systems is authorized, authenticated several times, and documented – the security of inner periphery of an organization’s IT networks remains robust. In addition, ARCON Privileged Access Management monitors the privileged users in real time and alerts the administrators if anything suspicious is observed. This way, any suspicious activity is blocked instantly leaving no scope for data breach.

The Bottom-Line:

Privileged accounts are the most vulnerable IT assets in the whole of IT fabric. In order to mitigate malicious activities around privileged accounts, ensure controlled privileged access and monitor privileged activities in real-time, a robust ARCON Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution is an indispensable tool to avert such incidents.

ARCON is a leading enterprise risk control solutions provider, specializing in risk-predictive technologies. ARCON | User Behaviour Analytics enables to monitor end-user activities in real time. ARCON | Privileged Access Management reinforces access control and mitigates data breach threats. ARCON | Endpoint Privilege Management mitigates risks arising out of endpoints. ARCON | Secure Compliance Management is a vulnerability assessment tool.