Sam Hanson

Dragos 2026 OT Cybersecurity Report: a Year in Review Get the latest OT threats, vulnerabilities, and lessons learned from real-world incidents in this year’s 2026 OT Cybersecurity Report.

The Dragos 2026 Year In Review Report is live: 3 new threat groups, updates from 3 of our more active threat groups, and (my personal favorite) coverage of a subset ICS-related capabilities that we found last year.

“AI will change the average persons life”

The average person using AI:

(h/t Reid Wightman for finding this gem)

Every year at @cyberwarcon.bsky.social there’s an extraordinarily well sourced deeply detailed talk about a topic that I literally know nothing about but is extraordinarily fascinating. Congrats @bees.infosec.exchange.ap.brid.gy for producing this year’s edition.

Not surprised - Jonathan truly knows his shit. Congrats Jonathan!

Me watching everyone at CYBERWARCON this week

a man in a basketball jersey is looking at the camera . ALT: a man in a basketball jersey is looking at the camera .

“Four of the 16 short links were clicked, three by the senior staff members.”

That’s a pretty good return rate for phishing. Blasting out hundreds of phish, as they did, and you’ll always get someone. But 25% for a given org…

*sends phish to John Podesta using public account on bitly to hide URL*

“holy shit, this guys good…world-class, even.”

Glad they got this asshole

That’s what we call an OPSEC oopsie

Had a great time presenting at LSU this week on hunting and analyzing Go and Python malware samples while hunting for ICS malware. For those who couldn't make it, you can catch a recording of this talk from Hou.Sec.Con last month with @sam-hans0n.bsky.social

www.youtube.com/watc...

A lot of folks have reached out about Socket’s recent report on a supply chain attack using malicious NuGet packages to target Siemens S7 protocol and other PLCs.

This is not a supply chain attack in the traditional sense.
1/6

That game hurt my soul, last Vikings drive was…rough to say the least.

Went to a wedding and danced. Then went to a bar and danced. I didn't care about people watching me dance and people liked that I danced.

Just dance.

See you all tomorrow at #bsidesTC at Open Book in downtown Minneapolis!

CS Malware is rare. Yet, ICS Malware like FrostyGoop and TRISIS, and related discoveries like COSMICENERGY, were all found on VirusTotal, so analysts still hunt for novel ICS Malware in public malware repositories. In the process, they discover all kinds of tools: research, CTFs, obfuscated nonsense DEF CON 33 - Don’t Cry Wolf: Evidence based assessments of ICS Threats - Jimmy Wylie & Sam Hanson

Our DEF CON33 ICS Village talk is now on YouTube!

@sam-hans0n.bsky.social and I share stories of malware we discovered while searching for ICS threats, and discuss our approach to assessing their reputation.

Don't Cry Wolf: Evidence-Based Assessment of ICS Threats

DEF CON talk now on YouTube! Check it out:

Excited to launch the BSidesTC CTF this evening! Its been a lot of fun planning and designing the challenges with @sam-hans0n.bsky.social. I hope everyone has fun with it and I look forward to seeing how people do!

The BSidesTC 2025 Capture The Flag challenge has officially launched.

Head to our website to download the zipped executable file:

bsidestc.org?page_id=145

Players will need an x86_64 Linux sandbox to start the challenge.
Organizers will be available at the conference to answer any questions.

Dropping very soon!!

In ICS, malware analysis can feel like archaeology. I started the week with a 13 year old sample and ended the week with @sam-hans0n.bsky.social pinging about an 18 years old sample.

So, save your old Windows ISOs and VMs, you might need them!

“What made you investigate that specific sample on VirusTotal?”

Super excited about a new tool, PyLingual, a transformed based Python decompiler. This will be super useful for malware analysis, great work to the teams involved.

pylingual.io/about

Check out their research paper here (also fun to see Dragos cited):

softsec.kaist.ac.kr/~sangkilc/pa...

Without the direct ties to an event or IoCs, it can be difficult making that determination.

Is it malware or a red teaming tool?

Is it malware or a research project?

It’s not always obvious. Malware repositories can contain some real gold. But without hard evidence, we can’t make conclusions.

a black and white photo of a woman standing in front of a mirror with the words `` idk '' written on it . ALT: a black and white photo of a woman standing in front of a mirror with the words `` idk '' written on it .

Another day of “is it malware or is it a CTF challenge”

Btw - your cooking pics look incredible. Teach me your ways.

*infosec.

Agreed. I get astrophotography, infused, and cats. So much better.

The River of Doubt!

It’s about Theodore Roosevelt expedition after his 1912 election loss. I just finished it today, it’s incredible what he persevered.

And yes “off the X” is a double entendre. But it feels fitting, cause Twitter became disgusting and dangerous.

Hello Bluesky community! Figured I should do an introduction.

I’m a vuln/malware analyst at Dragos, specializing in malware analysis, vulnerability research, and (some) threat hunting.

Big fan of anything space-related, fitness, and general nerd shit.

Happy to be “off the X”… so to speak 😃