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Ransomware gangs ramp up industrial attacks in U.S.
Ransomware gangs are hitting the industrial sector hard — and especially manufacturing companies, with significant spikes in cyberattack activity against US organizations spotted in the third quarter. Meanwhile, emerging ransomware groups are bursting onto the scene, threatening to push the rate of attacks up even higher.
According to a Dragos Q3 analysis of ransomware attacks on industrial organizations, 36% of the recorded cases globally hit North America (46 incidents). This is a significant 10% increase over last quarter, when a quarter of cases affected the region.
However, the analysis also found that the rate of attacks globally remained flat quarter over quarter — 128 incidents for Q3 vs. 125 in Q2.
The majority (68%) of observed incidents were aimed at the manufacturing sector. Out of the confirmed attacks (i.e., those publicly reported, seen in the firm’s telemetry, or confirmed on the Dark Web), 88 were against that segment, especially those producing metal products (12 attacks).
Stephen Banda, senior manager of security solutions at Lookout, noted that the manufacturing sector, like everyone else, is moving to the cloud; digitizing manufacturing, inventory tracking, operations, and maintenance increases agility and efficiency, with less production downtime and a greater nimbleness. But it also opens up new attack surfaces.
“To remain competitive, manufacturers are investing in intellectual property and new technologies like digital twins,” he tells Dark Reading. “In short, manufacturers are transforming the way they produce and deliver goods – moving toward industrial automation and the flexible factory. This transformation, known as Industry 4.0, puts pressure on mobile devices and cloud solutions.”
Yet for most manufacturers, security solutions still remain on-premises, he adds.
“This creates efficacy and scalability challenges when tasked with protecting productivity solutions that have moved to the cloud,” he notes. “Security therefore must also move to the cloud to adequately safeguard manufacturing operations.”
To read the complete article, visit Dark Reading.
