0110, 2025

DeepSec 2025 Talk: Breaking Into OT Environments: Exploiting Vulnerabilities to Compromise Critical Infrastructure – Avanish Pathak

Sanna/ October 1, 2025/ Conference/ 0 comments

In this session, we’ll delve into how attackers systematically exploit weaknesses in Operational Technology (OT) systems to compromise critical infrastructure. OT systems—including building management systems (BMS), access control systems (ACS), and surveillance networks (CCTV)—are the backbone of many critical sectors, managing everything from facility operations to security and environmental controls. Despite their importance, these systems are often neglected in cybersecurity frameworks, making them prime targets for exploitation. We’ll explore real-world attack vectors and strategies used by adversaries to infiltrate OT environments, focusing on how they gain control over critical systems. Through a real-world example, I’ll demonstrate how I successfully gained unauthorized access by chaining faulty configurations to compromise a building management system (BMS). We’ll break down how attackers exploit common entry points, escalate privileges, and disrupt operations. Additionally, we’ll examine how adversaries move laterally

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2705, 2025

DeepSec 2025 Press Release: High threat level for IT security research. IT security is under attack from politics and hostility towards science.

Sanna/ May 27, 2025/ Conference/ 0 comments

Information technology is an integral part of computer science and therefore also of mathematics. Since 2007, the DeepSec conference in Vienna has brought together international researchers to discuss current threats, publish acute vulnerabilities and exchange knowledge on the defence of critical infrastructure. The increasing hostility towards science and the dismantling of US authorities that contribute to IT security are jeopardising the work and, therefore, also the results of the research groups. One consequence is a higher threat level for European companies. The DeepSec conference aims to counter this as a platform. Networks and data in the crosshairs Data may not be crude oil, but it is the driving force behind modern information technology. Digitalisation has made data via networks and services indispensable in many companies. Very few people today can go about their working

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2005, 2021

Press Release: Low-tech Attacks. Critical Infrastructure poorly secured – Attacks against Colonial Pipeline used Standard Access Tools

Sanna/ May 20, 2021/ Press, Training

In May, the operator of the US Colonial Pipeline was the victim of a ransomware attack. After such reports, calls for better security and additional measures are always loud. In fact, analyzes of these attacks often reveal deficiencies in basic security. Often it is not even necessary to use complicated and sophisticated tools to attack critical infrastructure. Attackers like to use standard tools that are available everywhere so as not to attract attention. The lack of basic security makes it possible. Custom camouflage When defending your own systems and networks, it is necessary to know exactly what the infrastructure is like. Organized groups that attack companies research exactly what is being used at the target before the attack. According to this planning phase, only tools are used that are plausible to the victim and

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