Criminal cyber activity evolves at an incredible pace. Today’s cybercriminals are constantly on the lookout for security gaps that will give them access to your facilities or a wide range of important, private and sensitive information. In our increasingly interconnected world, the potential avenues of exploitation seem greater than ever.
The cyber threats facing Industrial Control Systems (ICS) include nation-state attacks, hacktivists, criminals and even trusted insiders. The frequency and ferocity of attacks are growing and continue to pose a major challenge to those ICS practitioners and cybersecurity teams tasked with protecting our critical national infrastructure (CNI).
In 2017, the financial impact of cyberattacks reached $5 billion and the monthly attack rate was 10-times the rate of attacks in 2016. The industrial and personal reliance on the U.S. power grid makes the impact of a successful attack troubling.
Fifty-six percent of organizations experienced a data breach involving more than 1,000 records over the past two years, and of those, 37 percent occurred two to three times and 39 percent were global in scope, according to Experian.
Eighty-four percent of CISOs in North America believe cybersecurity breaches are inevitable, and a lack of influence in the boardroom is making it difficult to justify the necessary cybersecurity budgets.
It is more important than ever to harden access to your video surveillance infrastructure to provide increased visibility and control over the environment.
When it comes to cybersecurity, no doubt humans are the weakest link. No matter how many layers are added to your security stack, nor how much phishing education and awareness training you do, threat actors continue to develop more sophisticated ways to exploit the human vulnerabilities with socially engineered attacks. In fact, as security defenses keep improving, hackers are compelled to develop more clever and convincing ways to exploit the human attack surface to gain access to sensitive assets.
In the last few years, executives overseeing energy, utility and other industrial organizations have begun to worry about the threat of cyberattacks on our nation’s most critical infrastructures. Ten years ago, their main concerns were focused on safety or environmental risks. Back then, operators believed the virtual barricades, or air gaps, between networks and technologies were sufficient enough to defend against malware and cyberattacks.
Technology has advanced at an astonishing rate in the last decade, and the pace is only set to accelerate. Capabilities that seemed impossible only a short time ago will develop extremely quickly, aiding those who see them coming and hindering those who don’t. Developments in smart technology will create new possibilities for organizations of all kinds – but they will also create opportunities for attackers and adversaries by reducing the effectiveness of existing controls. Previously well-protected information will become vulnerable.
By using a malware attack on the bank’s ATM server, hackers stole customer information and withdrew 805 million rupees in 14,849 transactions in just over two hours on August 11, mostly overseas.
