Thread by @cyber_watchers

According to a CISA advisory, actors associated with FSUE TsNIIKhM are responsible for developing
destructive ICS malware. TsNIIKhM has also been sanctioned by the US Department of Treasury for
connections to the Triton Malware.

In 2021 the US indicted an employee of the institute, Evgeny Gladkikh, for installing TRITON malware on a safety system of global energy facilities and using techniques designed to enable future damage with potentially catastrophic effects on a Shneider Electric safety system.

However, when the TRITON malware was deployed, it caused a fault that led the refinery's safety systems to initiate two automatic emergency shutdowns of the refinerys operations.

The UK FCDO also named TsNIIKhM responsible for an incident involving safety override controls using
TRITON in a Saudi petro-chemicals plant in 2017.

TRITON is a custom built malware designed to manipulated safety instruments systems within #ICS controllers and Operational Technology disabling the safety alarms that prevent dangerous conditions.

TsNIIKhM, Центральный научно-исследовательский институт химии и механики (Central Scientiific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics) celebrates the 130th anniversary of its foundation on 15 September 2024 and has been the major rearch
institution of the Russian military.

Its formation in 1894 was associated with the creation in the Russian Empire of a new industry at that time, smokeless gun powder manufacture.

The Institute was named the Military Chemical Research Institute (VKhNII) in 1931 and was relocated from Leningrad to Moscow in 1932. In 1937 VKhNII was renamed Scientific Research Institute No.6 (NII-6). In 1969 the institute was again rebadged
and became TsNIIKhM.

In 2005, TsNIIKhM was subordinated to the Federal Technical and Export Controls Service (FTEC) when it became responsible for protecting state secrets from foreign intelligence services via technological means.

TsNIIKhM described itself as the Russian Ministry of Defense's leading research organization.

Links to several Universities were formed in 2008 allowing post graduate work for the institutes scientific personnel. Joint labarotories were created at Moscows state university, M.V. Lomonsov, MSTU, M.E. Bauman and MAI.

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