Cyber assaults aimed at “industrial control systems” escalating

Cyber attacks aimed at ICS (industrial control systems) impacted 47.2 percent of PCs getting protection from Kaspersky Lab the security company, during 2018, an increase from 44 percent during the year before. Malware-laced operations increasingly targeted nearly fifty percent of infrastructures in industries even as these were Kaspersky-protected last year, however, UK belongs to the group of most secured nations in cyber space, reports Kaspersky Lab.

The "Threat Landscape for Industrial Automation Systems" report by Kaspersky Lab reveals figures indicating nearly one industrial computer within every 2 as showing clues of cyber attackers trying to harm it with their malicious operations which in majority instances got identified with security software.

Kaspersky Lab's customers tendered in anonymised data for analysis by Kaspersky Security Network based on which the latest figures were estimated showing that the key assault medium against the industrial computers is online activity, wherein hackers search for unprotected PCs and ports for acquiring admission into the systems. This happened with 25 percent of the identified attacks.

Meanwhile in spite of the usual belief, industrial computers don't encounter targeted assaults as the key way of infection rather it's the mass-distributed malicious software, which penetrates industrial computers accidentally online via e-mails or USB sticks, says Security Researcher Kirill Kruglov from Kaspersky Lab ICS. Further according to Kruglov, since it happens that the success of cyber assaults is due to employees' casual way of handling cyber security it implies such attitude can be deterred via increasing awareness and training of staff, which's far easier than attempting at foiling determined cyber-criminals. www.computerweekly.com posted this, March 27, 2019.

Kaspersky Lab states malicious online operations against ICS is a very dangerous threat, as it could potentially result in production downtime and material loss at industrial facilities that may also consist of computers handling nations' critical infrastructures. For aiding prevention of successful cyber assaults on industrial networks, it's advisable for routinely making software and operating systems up-to-date as well as deploying security patches/fixes whenever launched.

During August last, security researchers at Cybereason a security company drew one conclusion that certain special type of cyber-criminals existed that specialized in attacking industrial control systems.

» SPAMfighter News - 3/29/2019