U.S News: Cyberattacks Surge on Energy Companies, Electric Grid
Steam rises from Germany’s Grafenrheinfeld nuclear power plant June 11. IT workers at energy companies and electric utilities in the U.S. reported a spike in cyberattacks in the past 12 months.
Energy companies and electric utilities have experienced a spike in cyberattacks in the past year, according to a new survey by Tripwire, a digital security firm.
Of 150 information technology workers that were surveyed, more than 75 percent reported that their companies in the oil, natural gas and electricity sectors had experienced at least one “successful” cyberattack in the past 12 months, meaning intruders were able to breach one or more firewalls, antivirus programs or other protections.
Close to half said the number of attacks have increased in the past year. More than 80 percent believe an attack will harm physical infrastructure this year.
“It’s a wake-up call,” says Travis Smith, a senior analyst with Tripwire. “We can start doing things to protect these networks before anything happens.”
The nation’s energy and electricity infrastructure has long been seen as an appealing and vulnerable target, allowing cyber-criminals and foreign nations alike to wreak mass disruption or physical damage with a few keystrokes.
Last month, the Justice Department unsealed indictments against hackers linked to Iran, including one man charged with obtaining unauthorized access to the computer systems controlling a small dam in New York in 2013. Nearly all of the electric utilities in the U.S. still relied on Windows XP as recently as 2014, a long-outdated operating system that left them vulnerable to security breaches.
Attacks on electric grids have also been carried out overseas. U.S. officials accused Russia in February of executing a sophisticated cyberattack that crippled Ukraine’s electricity grid, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power.
While other sectors of the economy are not immune – earlier this year, a raft of U.S. hospitals were locked out from accessing files or patient information unless they forked over money to attackers in so-called “ransomware” attacks – the energy and electricity sectors appear to have become a magnet for hackers.
