June 29, 2016
A comprehensive report published yesterday by security firm Trend Micro revealed that threat groups are intensifying their efforts against companies activating in the mining sector.
The reasons behind these attacks can be geo-political, but related to also financial gains. Threat groups are targeting these companies to gain insights on state-operated mining firms in order to understand or subvert local politics but also to steal intellectual property and other proprietary information.
This information usually reaches the black market or is passed on to local mining corporations in case of state-powered cyber-attacks.
Since 2010, cyber-security firms have been called in to investigate 17 incidents involving cyber-attacks on 22 entities activating in the mining sector.