Killware that spells a doomsday for the entire humankind is a kind of malware that is developed to disrupt public infrastructure or health services claiming lives in some serious instances.
Precisely speaking, it a new cyber threat that targets infrastructure that is essential for a living like power sector, aviation, banks, fuel supply, transport services, emergency responses like 911 servers, water utilities and food supply chain.
US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has termed the killware as an emerging cyber threat that is designed to cause death and, in some instances, mass murders.
Now the big question- Did Killware claim lives so far?
Yes, a Killware in the form of ransomware made a German lady die due to the non- availability of emergency services in a hospital as a ransomware attack critically hit their digital services in July 2020.
In the year 2019, a baby’s’ delivery became complicated, making the girl child die because of some medical complications arising in the mother’s body.
In early 2021, a water utility in Florida was hit by a malware attack where the hackers were having an intention to poison the entire water stored in the facility with sodium chloride chemical. Thank god, the admin recognized the suspicious activity in time and prevented the contaminated water from going into the supply chain, thus avoiding the massacre of over 15,000 citizens.
How to prevent Killware from infecting a network?
Deploying solutions that offer complete network visibility and threat mitigation is the only option. Also removing legacy systems that lack basic security measures makes complete sense. Maintaining backup architecture helps to keep data continuity intact at the time of disasters.
Note- According to a report published by Gartner in July this year, hackers will start weaponizing industrial facilities by 2025, leading to many deaths.
