Critical infrastructure under attack

Critical infrastructure is becoming more dependent on networks of interconnected devices. For example, only a few decades ago, power grids were essentially operational silos. Today, most grids are closely interlinked — regionally, nationally, and internationally as well as with other industrial sectors. And in contrast to discrete cyberattacks on individual companies, a targeted disruption of critical infrastructure can result in extended supply shortages, power blackouts, public disorder, and other serious consequences.

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), cyberattacks on critical infrastructure posed the fifth-highest economic risk in 2020, and the WEF called the potential for such attacks “the new normal across sectors such as energy, healthcare, and transportation.” Another report noted that such attacks can have major spillover effects. Lloyd’s and the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Risk Studies calculated the prospective economic and insurance costs of a severe cyberattack against America’s electricity system could amount to more than $240 billion and possibly more than $1 trillion.

Given these potential far-reaching consequences, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure have become a big concern for industry and governments everywhere — and recent events haven’t done much to allay these fears.

A Worldwide Phenomenon
In May 2021, a huge distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack crippled large sections of Belgium’s Internet services, affecting more than 200 organizations, including government, universities, and research institutes. Even parliamentary debates and committee meetings were stalled since no one could access the online services they needed to participate.

A few days later, a ransomware attack shut down the main pipeline carrying gasoline and diesel fuel to the US East Coast. The Colonial Pipeline is America’s largest refined-products pipeline. The company says it transports more than 100 million gallons a day of fossil fuels, including gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and heating oil — or almost half the supply on the East Coast, including supplies for US military facilities.

In August 2020, the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX) was taken offline for four trading days after an unprecedented volumetric DDoS attack launched through its network service provider. New Zealand’s government summoned its national cybersecurity services to investigate, and cyber experts suggested the attacks might have been a dry run of a major attack on other global stock exchanges.

In October 2020, Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton, said his country must be ready to fight back against disastrous and extended cyberattacks on critical infrastructure that could upend whole industries.

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