Forescout’s phony water plant fooled TwoNet into claiming a fake cyber victory – then it quietly shut up shop
Security researchers say they duped pro-Russia cybercriminals into targeting a fake critical infrastructure organization, which the crew later claimed - via their Telegram group - to be a real-world attack.
Forescout said the short-lived TwoNet hacktivist group fell for one of its researchers’ honeypots, designed to look like a water treatment plant to a remote attacker. […]
I wonder whether they shut up shop because they thought they’d just made the CIA’s “naughty” list?
Or just did the rather common thing these days of ditching their infrastructure as blown and starting up again under a new name?
Probably more of the latter. They unwittingly fell into a honeypot and are probably afraid they exposed themselves and will be tracked down. So better to break it up and try again in another form.
It could be that failure is punished very severely
It isn’t all that uncommon in Authoritarian government