Organizations Must Understand What’s Driving the Escalated Targeting of Industrial Networks
We have ample evidence that nation-state adversaries are targeting Energy and other critical infrastructure sectors. Those networks are essential to operations and therefore valuable to attackers, and we can expect to see more attacks as a form of economic warfare to advance geopolitical agendas. Nation-state adversaries have already crossed the red line of what in more traditional domains would constitute warfare. Yet, thus far, western governments have not responded appropriately, which is further emboldening the Russian nation state hackers.
Consider the first incidents that provided elements of proof of a nation-state waging war on critical infrastructure: the attacks on the Ukraine power grid in December 2015 and December 2016. A nation-state, now widely acknowledged to be Russia, launched an attack targeting industrial control systems (ICS) components within the network of electric utilities. This was clearly a show of power and many believe a test bed for similar further operations in the west – not so much on the technical capabilities, but rather on the response from the west. In any other domain of warfare this would be considered crossing a red line. However, the world did not react accordingly.
The second wave came with WannaCry and subsequently, and more importantly, NotPetya. A significant escalation in this type of warfare, NotPetya was devised to spread quickly and indiscriminately. It sent a clear message that foreign companies doing business in Ukraine shou ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
