Digital attackers are increasingly targeting energy organizations including those that support national electric grids. As reported by Morning Consult, security researchers found that utilities worldwide had suffered a recorded 1,780 distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks between June 15 and August 21, 2020. That’s a 595% year-over-year increase.

The recent news of a cyberattack on a water treatment plant carried out by a remote perpetrator came as a shock to organizations around the world. Earlier this month, an unauthorized threat actor had remotely accessed the plant’s control systems via TeamViewer and used it to increase the amount of sodium hydroxide (lye) in water to dangerously higher levels.

Digital threats confronting Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) are on the rise. That’s because attackers are increasingly going after the Operational Technology (OT) and Industrial Control Systems (ICS) that shareholders use to protect these assets.

Digital attack attempts in industrial environments are on the rise. In February 2020, IBM X-Force reported that it had observed a 2,000% increase in the attempts by threat actors to target Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Operational Technology (OT) assets between 2018 and 2010. This surge eclipsed the total number of attacks against organizations’ industrial environments that had occurred over the previous three years combined.

In the last quarter of 2019, researchers at ClearSky uncovered an attack operation that they dubbed the “Fox Kitten Campaign.” Iranian actors used this offensive to gain persistent access into the networks of dozens of companies operating in Israel and around the world across the IT, telecommunication, oil and gas, aviation, government and security sectors. These individuals were successful in their efforts because they employed a variety of attack vectors.

You don’t have to search very far in the news to see stories of websites being hacked and customer details being stolen. Stories about incidents involving industrial control systems (ICSes) and operational technology (OT) environments aren’t so common. But they are prevalent. Just the other week, for example, an airline company sent out an email letting me know that their database had been hacked and that my travel details might have been taken.

By now, most are aware that the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a spike in cyberattacks. This sharp increase in malicious activity related to COVID has taken the typical form of adversaries seeking to benefit financially, gain unauthorized access to networks for immediate and long-term strategic benefit, and spread misinformation with political agendas.