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T0828 Loss of Productivity and Revenue

Adversaries may cause loss of productivity and revenue through disruption and even damage to the availability and integrity of control system operations, devices, and related processes. This technique may manifest as a direct effect of an ICS-targeting attack or tangentially, due to an IT-targeting attack against non-segregated environments.

In cases where these operations or services are brought to a halt, the loss of productivity may eventually present an impact for the end-users or consumers of products and services. The disrupted supply-chain may result in supply shortages and increased prices, among other consequences.

A ransomware attack on an Australian beverage company resulted in the shutdown of some manufacturing sites, including precautionary halts to protect key systems. 3 The company announced the potential for temporary shortages of their products following the attack. 3 2

In the 2021 Colonial Pipeline ransomware incident, the pipeline was unable to transport approximately 2.5 million barrels of fuel per day to the East Coast. 1

Item Value
ID T0828
Sub-techniques
Tactics TA0105
Platforms None
Version 1.0
Created 21 May 2020
Last Modified 16 April 2025

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
C0028 2015 Ukraine Electric Power Attack During the 2015 Ukraine Electric Power Attack, power breakers were opened which caused the operating companies to be unable to deliver power, and left thousands of businesses and households without power for around 6 hours. 1413
S0606 Bad Rabbit Several transportation organizations in Ukraine have suffered from being infected by Bad Rabbit, resulting in some computers becoming encrypted, according to media reports. 12
S0608 Conficker A Conficker infection at a nuclear power plant forced the facility to shutdown and go through security procedures involved with such events, with its staff scanning computer systems and going through all the regular checks and motions before putting the plant back into production. 8
S0605 EKANS EKANS infection resulted in a temporary production loss within a Honda manufacturing plant. 10
S0372 LockerGoga While Norsk Hydro attempted to recover from a LockerGoga infection, most of its 160 manufacturing locations switched to manual (non-IT driven) operations. Manual operations can result in a loss of productivity. 76
S0368 NotPetya NotPetya disrupted manufacturing facilities supplying vaccines, resulting in a halt of production and the inability to meet demand for specific vaccines. 9
S0496 REvil The REvil malware gained access to an organizations network and encrypted sensitive files used by OT equipment. 11
S0446 Ryuk An enterprise resource planning (ERP) manufacturing server was lost to the Ryuk attack. The manufacturing process had to rely on paper and existing orders to keep the shop floor open. 5
C0030 Triton Safety Instrumented System Attack In the Triton Safety Instrumented System Attack, TEMP.Veles tripped a controller into a failed safe state, which caused an automatic shutdown of the plant, this resulted in a pause of plant operations for more than a week. Thereby impacting industrial processes and halting productivity.15
C0031 Unitronics Defacement Campaign During the Unitronics Defacement Campaign, the CyberAv3ngers caused multiple businesses to halt operations in their industrial environments, impacting their typical business operations. These victims covered multiple sectors.16

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M0953 Data Backup Take and store data backups from end user systems and critical servers. Ensure backup and storage systems are hardened and kept separate from the corporate network to prevent compromise. Maintain and exercise incident response plans 4, including the management of gold-copy back-up images and configurations for key systems to enable quick recovery and response from adversarial activities that impact control, view, or availability.

References

  1. Colonial Pipeline Company 2021, May Media Statement Update: Colonial Pipeline System Disruption Retrieved. 2021/10/08  ↩

  2. Lion Corporation 2020, June 26 Lion Cyber incident update: 26 June 2020 Retrieved. 2021/10/08  ↩

  3. Paganini, Pierluigi 2020, June 14 Ransomware attack disrupts operations at Australian beverage company Lion Retrieved. 2021/10/08  ↩↩

  4. Department of Homeland Security 2009, October Developing an Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Incident Response Capability Retrieved. 2020/09/17  ↩

  5. Kelly Jackson Higgins How a Manufacturing Firm Recovered from a Devastating Ransomware Attack Retrieved. 2019/11/03  ↩

  6. Hydro Kevin Beaumont How Lockergoga took down Hydro ransomware used in targeted attacks aimed at big business Retrieved. 2019/10/16 Retrieved. 2019/10/16  ↩

  7. Kevin Beaumont How Lockergoga took down Hydro ransomware used in targeted attacks aimed at big business Retrieved. 2019/10/16  ↩

  8. Catalin Cimpanu 2016, April 26 Malware Shuts Down German Nuclear Power Plant on Chernobyl’s 30th Anniversary Retrieved. 2019/10/14  ↩

  9. David Voreacos, Katherine Chinglinsky, Riley Griffin 2019, December 03 Merck Cyberattacks $1.3 Billion Question: Was It an Act of War? Retrieved. 2019/12/06  ↩

  10. Davey Winder 2020, June 10 Honda Hacked: Japanese Car Giant Confirms Cyber Attack On Global Operations Retrieved. 2021/04/12  ↩

  11. Selena Larson, Camille Singleton 2020, December RANSOMWARE IN ICS ENVIRONMENTS Retrieved. 2021/04/12  ↩

  12. M.Léveille, M-E.. (2017, October 24). Bad Rabbit: Not‑Petya is back with improved ransomware. Retrieved January 28, 2021. ↩

  13. Booz Allen Hamilton. (2016). When The Lights Went Out. Retrieved December 18, 2024. ↩

  14. Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center; SANS Industrial Control Systems. (2016, March 18). Analysis of the Cyber Attack on the Ukranian Power Grid: Defense Use Case. Retrieved March 27, 2018. ↩

  15. Blake Johnson, Dan Caban, Marina Krotofil, Dan Scali, Nathan Brubaker, Christopher Glyer. (2017, December 14). Attackers Deploy New ICS Attack Framework “TRITON” and Cause Operational Disruption to Critical Infrastructure. Retrieved January 12, 2018. ↩

  16. Jamie Tarabay and Katrina Manson. (2023, December 22). Iranian-Linked Hacks Expose Failure to Safeguard US Water System. Retrieved March 25, 2024. ↩