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Research from Dragos has highlighted that the industrial sector attracted increased unwanted attention from adversaries last year . With attackers continuing to up the ante and the consequences of an attack proving potentially devastating , defenders must review and prioritise their OT security strategies . Seth Enoka , Principal Industrial Incident Responder , Dragos , talks us through the research and highlights how CISOs can better protect their organisations against these threats .

The impacts of a security breach on critical infrastructure , whether targeted or opportunistic , are significant . The consequences of a cyberattack in industrial environments are often far more dire than those in IT networks . Attacks on enterprise IT are impactful , too – a data leak because of a phishing incident can wreak havoc – but when it comes to critical infrastructure , adversaries can and have caused massive disruption , including loss of view , loss of control , and even risk to life ¹ .

Our Year in Review ² highlighted that in 2021 , the industrial community ³ United States ⁴ .

These reports underscored the potentially devastating outcomes a security breach of critical infrastructure could have on communities and a country ’ s economy . They also elevated the ICS / OT community ’ s discussion on cyber-readiness and brought them to the fore – and the policymakers ’ and regulators ’ attention , too .

Can you tell us more about the report findings and how they will aid the CISO community ?

The report provides industrial organisations with meaningful insights to help them better understand the cyberrisks surrounding their most important assets – their ICS / OT environments .

It adds data-driven insights that provide context to the sensational stories and evidence from the field of how industrial organisations are progressing in their cybersecurity readiness and where they

Seth Enoka , Principal Industrial Incident Responder , Dragos need to continue their work to provide safe and reliable operations into 2022 and beyond .

Among other findings , the report identified three new activity groups with the assessed motivation of targeting OT . Two groups have achieved Stage 2 of the ICS Cyber Kill Chain ⁵ showing their ability to access OT networks directly .

In March 2021 , KOSTOVITE ⁶ compromised the perimeter of an energy operation and maintenance provider network , exploiting a zeroday vulnerability in the popular remote www . intelligentciso . com

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