https://urgentcomm.com/wp-content/themes/ucm_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Multimedia
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
    • IWCE 2022 Winter Showcase
    • IWCE 2023 Pre-event Guide
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • Commentary
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • All Things IWCE
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • IWCE
    • Conference
    • Special Events
    • Exhibitor Listings
    • Premier Partners
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Register for IWCE
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookie Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • Mission Critical Technologies
    • TU-Auto
  • In the field
    • Back
    • In the field
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Internet of Things
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Call Center/Command
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Network Tech
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Operations
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Regulations
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • Organizations
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
Urgent Communications
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Omdia Crit Comms Circle Podcast
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
    • IWCE 2023 Pre-event Guide
    • IWCE 2022 Winter Showcase
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • All Things IWCE
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • UC eZines
    • Sponsored content
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • Conference
    • Why Attend
    • Exhibitor Listing
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Join the Event Mailing List
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Cookie Policy
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • TU-Auto
  • newsletter
  • In the field
    • Back
    • Internet of Things
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Cybersecurity
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
acc.com

Critical Infrastructure


Partner content

Critical-infrastructure ICS confronted by attackers armed with new motives, tactics, and malware

Critical-infrastructure ICS confronted by attackers armed with new motives, tactics, and malware

  • Written by Elizabeth Montalbano / Dark Reading
  • 19th January 2023

The motive of financial and political gain—fueled partially by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine—has emboldened threat actors to barrage industrial control systems (ICS) with ever-more-disruptive cyberattacks, diversifying the threat landscape for critical infrastructure, new research shows.

This trend is expected to continue throughout 2023 with attackers arming themselves with new tactics and malware, forcing ICS operators to level up if they want to protect their networks, according to Nozomi Networks’ “OT/IoT Security Report: A Deep Look Into the ICS Threat Landscape” for the second half of 2022, published Jan. 18.

It used to be that nation-state actors were the leading perpetrators of attacks against ICS, primarily using remote access Trojans (RATs) to drop malware payloads and gain remote access to networks, as well as mounting distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to cause “inconvenient” disruption, says Roya Gordon, security research evangelist at Nozomi Networks. “Historically, critical infrastructure disruptions were seen as a nation-state tactic,” she says.

However, the now-infamous Colonial Pipeline attack in May 2021 marked a significant shift in this trend. In that incident, a ransomware attack that started with a stolen password caused panic and gas shortages across the eastern United States, and attackers realized how disruptive and potentially lucrative new attack vectors could be, she says.

“The Colonial Pipeline attack demonstrated how cybercriminals can leverage ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure — since they tend to depend heavily on real-time data, and have the means to meet ransom demands — for financial gain,” Gordon notes.

Then with Russia’s attack on Ukraine last February, attacks on ICS got political, with hacktivists, traditionally known for data breaches and DDoS attacks, wielding destructive wiper malware to disrupt transportation systems such as railroads and other critical infrastructure in the Ukraine for political gain, she says.

This marked a shift in not only who was attacking ICS, but how and for what motive they were launching these attacks, Gordon says. “All in all, this unprecedented level of activity across all fronts should cause us concern.”

Top ICS Cyberattack Trends

The report identified top trends in the ICS threat landscape based on a compilation of information from various sources including open source media, CISA ICS-CERT advisories, and Nozomi Networks telemetry, as well as on exclusive IoT honeypots that Nozomi researchers employ for “a deeper insight into how adversaries are targeting OT and IoT, furthering the understanding of malicious botnets that attempt to access these systems,” Gordon says.

What researchers observed over the last six months was a significant uptick in attacks that caused disruption to a number of industries, with transportation and healthcare being among the top new sectors finding themselves in the crosshairs of adversaries among more traditional targets.

To read the complete article, visit Dark Reading.

 

Tags: Artificial Intelligence Alerting Systems Analytics Applications Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity DHS Drones/Robots Enterprise Federal Government/Military Funding Incident Command/Situational Awareness Internet of Things Internet of Things Interoperability IoT/Smart X News Policy Public Safety Security Software State & Local Government Subscriber Devices System Design System Operation Tracking, Monitoring & Control Training Partner content

Most Recent


  • FBI, CISA issue joint warning on 'Snatch' ransomware-as-a-service
    Cybersecurity advisories from the FBI and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are usually a good indication that a particular threat merits priority attention from organizations in the crosshairs. That would appear to be the case with “Snatch,” a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation that has been active since at least 2018 and is the […]
  • Huawei hacked by U.S., according to China spy agency
    It’s back to 2019 on Huawei, with the US and China exchanging barbs and the Chinese firm accused of skirting US export rules. China foreign affairs spokesperson Mao Ning Wednesday assailed the US for “overstretching” the concept of national security in order to discriminate against Chinese companies. She rejected a complaint by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo over […]
  • Driverless-car crashes less frequent, cause less damage, according to insurance research
    Waymo is using insurance data to demonstrate that its self-driving taxis are safer than human-driven vehicles. The company, owned by Google parent Alphabet, has published research led by insurer Swiss Re that it says shows how driverless vehicles crash less frequently and do less damage than those piloted by humans. The study comes at a pivotal moment […]
  • Germany proposes strict curbs on Huawei
    Relying on a Russian thug for energy supplies no longer appeared very sensible to Germany’s government after Vladimir Putin sent Russian troops into Ukraine. Similar dependence by Germany’s telcos on Huawei has looked just as risky to opponents of the Chinese equipment vendor. If Putin could turn off the Nordstream gas taps in response to […]

Leave a comment Cancel reply

To leave a comment login with your Urgent Comms account:

Log in with your Urgent Comms account

Or alternatively provide your name, email address below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • Ransomware profits decline as victims dig in, refuse to pay
  • Critical manufacturing sector in the cyberattacking bullseye
  • T-Mobile failed to secure API in latest hack
  • With the rise of remote work, American cities face an ‘urban doom loop’ as revenue declines

Commentary


Better technology can help solve the public-safety staffing crisis

26th June 2023

Updated: How ‘sidelink’ peer-to-peer communications can enhance public-safety operations

  • 1
27th February 2023

NG911 needed to secure our communities and nation

24th February 2023
view all

Events


UC Ezines


IWCE 2019 Wrap Up

13th May 2019
view all

Twitter


Newsletter

Sign up for UrgentComm’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about Communications and Technology.

Expert Commentary

Learn from experts about the latest technology in automation, machine-learning, big data and cybersecurity.

Business Media

Find the latest videos and media from the market leaders.

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital and print audiences? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • American City & County
  • IWCE
  • Light Reading
  • IOT World Today
  • Mission Critical Technologies
  • TU-Auto

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Events
  • Careers

FOLLOW Urgent Comms ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2023 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.