Event description

Hackers attacked F Oil Refinery, owned by Tube. After gaining access to the enterprise’s industrial control system, the attackers changed the settings of the rectification column, increasing the steam supply to the lower part of the column, which led to the formation of foam that prevented the liquid fractions from flowing down through the apertures in the plates. The column switched to flooding mode, filling up with oil and halting the separation of fractions. For several hours now, instead of the required gasoline, kerosene, and fuel oil, a substandard product has been coming out of the column.

Consequences

1. Enterprise disruptions and downtime
2. Financial damage
3. Product quality deterioration

This has happened before

Wired

How hackers can use "evil bubbles" to destroy industrial pumps

In a talk at the Black Hat security conference Thursday, Honeywell security researcher Marina Krotofil showed one example of an attack on industrial systems meant to drive home just how surreptitious the hacking of so-called cyberphysical systems—physical systems that can be manipulated by digital means—might be. With a laptop connected to a $ 50,000, 610-pound industrial pump, she showed how a hacker could leverage a hidden, highly destructive weapon on that massive machine: bubbles.