Three years after a potentially devastating cyber attack on an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia, the US government has imposed sanctions on a Russian research center. The US Treasury Department announced on Friday (local time) that the attack software, which has become known as Triton, was used by the Institute for Chemistry and Mechanics. The sanctions will prevent the Moscow facility from doing business with individuals and companies from the United States, among other things.

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The aim was 2019 also energy infrastructure in the USA Triton is one of the few malware programs known to date that is specifically designed for attacks on industrial plants were developed. The software was rated as particularly dangerous by experts because it targets the security components of the systems. That could lead to the destruction of entire systems, warned the IT security company Fireeye, which had analyzed the software after the attack 2017. Fireeye established in October 2018 a connection to the Moscow institute from whose network Triton had been tested.

At the attack in summer 2017 brought down the control systems of the Saudi oil refinery. According to the findings of the IT security company Dragos, the developers at Triton also researched energy infrastructure in the USA in 2019.

“Russia is not conducting any attacks in the cybersphere” The Russian Ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, rejected the allegations of the US authorities. Unilateral sanctions are unlawful. Antonov demanded to end the constant attacks against Russia. Unlike the US, Russia does not carry out attacks in the cybersphere. Such harmful actions on the Internet contradict the principles of Russian foreign policy and national interests as well as the understanding of international contacts, he said.

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