This afternoon the Federal Electronics Commission announced
a $1.2 million fine was levied against Robotron, the German electronic control
system manufacturer, for the exfiltration and sale of manufacturing data from hundreds
of US companies. David Weeb, the FEC spokesman, reported that this is the first
fine the Commission has levied for industrial data exfiltration.
The FEC notice explained that the Robotron had used its
MotorSteuerung software to collect data from electric motors in thousands of
facilities around the world. While the data collection was originally designed
to provide preventive maintenance information to customers, Robotron has
admitted that they have been selling the data to electric motor manufacturers
around the world.
Robotron President Erich Mielke said in a prepared statement
that Robotron had initially started using the data for marketing their variable
speed motors. When the Electric Motors Division was sold off as part of a
restructuring move three years ago, Robotron decided to start selling the data
to other electric motor manufacturers.
Mielke explained that the detail performance data helped to
provide important sales leads and data to enable motor sales people to make the
case for switching to more expensive variable speed motors.
This practice came to the FEC’s notice recently when a
terrorism investigation by the Federal Bureau of Inquiry discovered that
sophisticated knowledge of the operation of a motor in an HVAC system allowed
hackers from the Stasi Ehemalige hacking collective to start the recent fire in
a synagogue near Houston, TX.
Johnathan Quest, an FBI spokesman, told reporters that
Robotron was probably not the direct source of the information used by the Stasi
group. He said that the FBI believes that an insider at an unnamed electric
motor manufacturer with close ties to Stasi Ehemalige provided the Robotron
information to the group. The FBI hopes to make arrests soon in that case where
two people were killed and hundreds injured in the synagogue fire.
No comments:
Post a Comment