Today’s interdependent and interconnected world requires joint efforts and holistic approaches to protect critical infrastructure assets from the growing number of attacks and to address ever-evolving cyber threats to government, energy, healthcare, education, banking, transportation, telecommunication and other critical sectors.
With a dedicated section focusing on Critical Infrastructure protection, we aim to enhance cooperation and engage security professionals through news, articles and in-depth analysis of emerging threats and technologies.
NEWS
- Story of the year 2019: Cities under ransomware siege
December 11, 2019
Overall awareness of the need for security measures is growing, and cybercriminals are increasing the precision of their targeting to locate victims with security breaches in their defense systems. Looking back at the past three years, the share of users targeted with ransomware in the overall number of malware detections has risen from 2.8% to 3.5%. While ...
- Equipping the Education Sector With Threat Intelligence to Defend Against Cyberattacks
October 17, 2019
When you think about sophisticated cyberattacks, certain targeted industries probably come to mind immediately — government, critical infrastructure, and financial services, to name a few. It’s fair to say that for most people, the education sector isn’t generally first on that list. Despite this, educational institutions (particularly those in higher education) have become an increasingly popular ...
- 17 US utility firms targeted by mysterious state-sponsored group
September 24, 2019
A mysterious state-sponsored hacking group has targeted at least 17 US utility firms with phishing emails for a five-month period between April 5 and August 29, Proofpoint reported today. The purpose of these attacks was to infect employees at US utility firms with LookBack, a remote access trojan with an extensive set of features. While no formal ...
- US wants to isolate power grids with ‘retro’ technology to limit cyber-attacks
July 2, 2019
The US is very close to improving power grid security by mandating the use of “retro” (analog, manual) technologies on US power grids as a defensive measure against foreign cyber-attacks that could bring down power distribution as a result. The idea is to use “retro” technology to isolate the grid’s most important control systems, to limit ...
- Senior Defence figure raises concerns about future cyber attacks
February 19, 2019
One of Australia’s senior military figures says the threat of cyber attacks against the nation’s infrastructure and military networks is on the rise. Major General Marcus Thompson leads the Information Warfare Division, which was set up in mid-2017 with the aim of providing both defensive and offensive cyber capabilities. In his first media major interview, he told ...
- Germany sees big rise in security problems affecting infrastructure
February 17, 2019
Germany has experienced a big increase in the number of security incidents hitting critical infrastructure such as power grids and water suppliers, the BSI cybersecurity agency said on Sunday, adding however that they were not all due to hacking. The Welt am Sonntag weekly had reported on Sunday that Germany had learned of 157 hacker attacks ...
- Poking the Bear: Three-Year Campaign Targets Russian Critical Infrastructure
December 11, 2018
Nation-state conflict has come to dominate many of the policy discussions and much of the strategic thinking about cybersecurity. When events of geopolitical significance hit the papers, researchers look for parallel signs of sub rosa cyber activity carried out by state-sponsored threat actors—espionage, sabotage, coercion, information operations—to complete the picture. After all, behind every story may lurk ...
- Mattis establishes DOD task force to protect critical tech, information
November 1, 2018
Secretary of Defense James Mattis has established a task force whose sole purpose is to better secure the Department of Defense’s important technology and information. Mattis issued a memo dated Oct. 24 creating the Protecting Critical Technology Task Force (PCTTF) to report to the deputy secretary of Defense and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Working with our partners ...
- Utilities, Energy Sector Attacked Mainly Via IT, Not ICS
November 1, 2018
Stealing administrative credentials to carry out months-long spy campaigns is a top threat. While industrial control systems (ICS) are the most talked-about when it comes to cyberattacks against energy and utilities firms, most attacks actually take aim at the enterprise IT networks used by these organizations, rather than critical infrastructure itself. The Vectra 2018 Spotlight Report on Energy and ...