The pro-Russian hacker group Throne has announced that it carried out a cyberattack on the industrial systems of the Czech brewing company Plzeňský Prazdroj (the producer of Pilsner Urquell).
The attackers gained remote access to the Siemens conveyor control system via an unprotected IP address on the network, simply by guessing the standard factory passwords, as the company lacked a system to protect against brute-force attacks.
The hackers claimed to have full control over the production lines and recipes, but described the attack merely as a ‘warning’ in response to the Czech Republic’s military aid to Ukraine and the training of Ukrainian military personnel.
The group is not demanding a ransom, but has cynically called on Prague to “cease hostile actions against Russia” and on European companies to at least change the default passwords on their industrial controllers.