Robotics & Automation News Market trends and business perspectives January 5 , 2017 by Mark Allinson A globally co-ordinated cyber attack has hit 500 industrial companies in 50 countries in the past few months , according to security company Kaspersky . The worst affected were companies in the smelting , electric power generation and transmission , construction , and engineering industries . The attacks Attack.Phishing take the form of emails purportedly from Attack.Phishing famous companies – such as DHL and Saudi Aramco – and most were sent Attack.Phishing from “ legitimate email addresses belonging to valid organizations ” , says Kaspersky . However , Kaspersky says its analysis of the emails compared to known malware shows that “ no new code was written specifically for this attack ” . Kaspersky says the hackers could have accessed Attack.Databreach and read previous communications between the target and their partners . They may then have used this information to craft Attack.Phishing email communications which appear to be legitimate , so that the victim didn ’ t recognize the malicious aspect of the email . If the email is opened , it can steal Attack.Databreach the user ’ s authentication credentials , which are send to a remote server .