Digital attack attempts in industrial environments are on the rise. In February 2020, IBM X-Force reported that it had observed a 2,000% increase in the attempts by threat actors to target Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Operational Technology (OT) assets between 2018 and 2010. This surge eclipsed the total number of attacks against organizations’ industrial environments that had occurred over the previous three years combined.Converging WorldsThe growth in the number of attacks discussed above is at least partially tied to OT’s ongoing convergence with Information Technology (IT). Previously, IT and OT were worlds unto themselves. IT personnel mainly helped to maintain the PCs, servers, and other technology assets that interacted with or, in some way, handled enterprise-related information. In contrast, OT staff members primarily managed controllers and segmented the industrial network. There was some collaboration, but this was limited to specific purposes like submitting work orders and billing.These worlds converged when many organizations began undergoing a digital transformation. Through this transformation process, organizations arrived at the belief that they could optimize their OT assets’ performance by connecting them to the Internet and IT systems. This convergence has introduced an abundance of network and computing devices into industrial environments that weren’t previously accessible via the web, thus expanding the IT systems attack surface in OT environments.Malicious actors didn’t waste any time in modifying their attacks. Indeed, TRITON (also known as TRISIS), WannaCry, and other malware made headlines for successfully targeting organizati ..
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