Almost Everyone Faced an Industrial Attack in the Last Year (csoonline.com) 9
A report commissioned by cloud security company Barracuda found that 94% of respondents have experienced some form of attack on their industrial IoT (IIoT) or operational technology (OT) systems during the last 12 months. From a report: The State of Industrial Security in 2022 report surveyed 800 senior IT and security officers responsible for these industrial systems. "In the current threat landscape, critical infrastructure is an attractive target for cybercriminals, but unfortunately IIoT/OT security projects often take a backseat to other security initiatives or fail due to cost or complexity, leaving organizations at risk," said Tim Jefferson, senior vice president for data protection, network, and application security at Barracuda said in a statement accompanying the report.
Recent attacks such as those targeted through the SolarWinds attack, and the Russian DDoS attack on Lithuania last month, have raised concerns over nation state-backed attacks on industrial systems. As a result, the survey found that 89% of the respondents are very or fairly concerned about the current geopolitical situation. Constellation Research analyst Liz Miller acknowledged that "the Russian invasion of Ukraine set the world on high alert as it anticipated vulnerabilities in IIoT devices becoming prime targets should the battle enter the cyberspace."
Recent attacks such as those targeted through the SolarWinds attack, and the Russian DDoS attack on Lithuania last month, have raised concerns over nation state-backed attacks on industrial systems. As a result, the survey found that 89% of the respondents are very or fairly concerned about the current geopolitical situation. Constellation Research analyst Liz Miller acknowledged that "the Russian invasion of Ukraine set the world on high alert as it anticipated vulnerabilities in IIoT devices becoming prime targets should the battle enter the cyberspace."
I'm not surprised (Score:3)
Corporate defences, in my experience, have typically been single point of failure designs that never failed safe. This is a crappy design.
I would have thought a better design would be to segment up the internal network, protecting each segment independently. Less a castle wall with a single drawbridge that can easily be bypassed and more a citidel arrangement with multiple walls and multiple gateways.
I'd have also thought that, by now, with virtually everyone sensible(!) on Linux servers, corporations would be making use of Capabilities, cgroups, and SELinux to control what privileges anyone could potentially escalate into, and HIDS to prevent malicious changes. I'm sure some companies do use some of these protections, but none I've ever worked for.
In short, attackers should find themselves with many small targets with customised protection for the group and customised shielding around each member in the group.
What I, personally, have seen is always the cheapest option the companies can get away with, with no regard for the effects of compromise, on the dubious theory that it's easier and cheaper to bill insurance than to prevent attacks in the first place, ignoring reputational damage (on the grounds that everyone gets hacked) and insurance wheezes to avoid paying (on the admittedly reasonable grounds that the company didn't bother to take sensible precautions).
This is why people have moved to the cloud, which is even more vulnerable than a data centre for the simple reason that vulnerabilities in the container software can be exploited. Just one tiny webstore needs to have misconfigured their systems and suddenly everyone on that server - and possibly in that cloud data centre - is vulnerable. Instead of castle walls, you're relying on city walls, where malicious actors will be able to wander into the city and thus be unimpeded by said walls.
Totally unbiased! (Score:3, Insightful)
Report commissioned by cloud security company concludes that people are in need of more security!
Who would have thought they would find that outcome?! I'm sure that if it means they make more money then that's just a coincidence and not them trying to spread FUD for their own benefit.
Re: (Score:2)
More specifically, that percentage comes from "respondents", not the community at large. So, yea, agree with you. Statistics can be manipulated just like they are here.
None the less, security is still an issue. We dont need to apply marketing to this.
Re: (Score:2)
Liable to backfire, then, as the chief cause of lack of security is the cloud. A barrier around a community doesn't protect against the invading hordes that are invited in by a hostile member of that community (as Britain discovered with the Romans and Normans) or against invading hordes that have infiltrated through a defective member of that community.