Industroyer2 was deployed as a single Windows executable named 108_100.exe and executed using a scheduled task.
According to the PE timestamp, suggesting that attackers had planned their attack for more than two weeks.
Industroyer2 only implements the IEC-104 (aka IEC 60870-5-104) protocol to communicate with industrial equipment.
This includes protection relays, used in electrical substations.
This is a slight change from the 2016 Industroyer variant that is a fully-modular platform with payloads for multiple ICS protocols.
Industroyer2 shares number of code similarities with the payload 104.dll of Industroyer.
ESET assesses with high confidence that the new variant was built using the same source code.
Industroyer2 is highly configurable.
It contains a detailed configuration hardcoded in its body, driving the malware actions.
This is different from Industroyer, stores configuration in a separate .INI file.
Thus, attackers need to recompile Industroyer2 for each new victim or environment.
However, given that the Industroyer* malware family has only been deployed twice, with a five year gap between each version, this is probably not a limitation for Sandworm operators.