Cyber-physical security in an interconnected world
Together, cyber and physical assets represent a significant amount of risk to physical security and cybersecurity — each can be targeted, separately or simultaneously, to result in compromised systems and infrastructure.
In May 2021, America’s energy jugular was threatened by a remote group of malicious cyber actors, called DarkSide. They unleashed a ransomware attack on one of the largest energy firms in the world and caused chaos across half of the United States. The ransomware attack stopped gas deliveries on the East Coast, causing shortages at the pump, a price spike on gasoline, and forced the company to pay millions of dollars in ransom to get their networks released.
The ransomware attack was the latest example of the potential danger that can be caused by the convergence of cybersecurity and physical security. Industry adoption and integration of Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices into their networks have led to an interconnected mesh of cyber-physical systems (CPS), which expands the attack surface and blurs the once-clear and separate functions of cybersecurity and physical security.