Energy, gas, and oil, three major components in society that churn and trust to keep man afloat amidst an unforeseen future. But what if these three components just suddenly ceased to stop working? That is the focal point of concern, and this concern stemmed from over 150 IT and OT professionals from the energy, gas, and oil industry. Their points vary, from stating that its good that industrial sector has raised its cyber-defense bar some, to the sector seemingly not considering raising any kind of solid defense until a catastrophic event actually happens.
Any type of targeted attack on the ICS (Industrial Control System) would have dangerous implications. There have already been attacks on sectors of industry, and these attacks proved capable of succeeding. A power plant going down would leave a city dark, but this would happen slowly, and would have dire consequences.
[See below some articles, they go over this point very well.]
https://www.computerworld.com/article/24...-grid.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/che...1446a0bb5a
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/201...n-nyc.html
The loss of oil and Gas would put a damper on getting around, and keeping houses warm during cold winter nights, and a cyber-attack like this one during a bad winter in say...New York City, would quite literally be a black winter. And sadly enough, no matter how many walls we put up, there is always someone somewhere who has the spine of a rat, and finds their way in. A certain gas and/or oil company could have a disgruntled former employee who wants to get back at them. Here is where a major hole is; with the employees of a target company. They could be exploited for any number of reasons (Some of these reasons are quite obvious, while others are more subtle.) This is right here is pure, unrefined lack of foresight on the part of the company and it is completely unavoidable. There is one bad apple in every batch, and there always will be.
Just pour over a country's current political and societal quirks and intricacies and you have a mess of exploits that could cripple a city, or even a state. [Remember, a single seedling can start a whole garden] . Back to companies not having the best cyber-security etiquette, if large [and very important] industrial sectors don't practice maximum etiquette then smaller more public sectors might have either the same if not worse etiquette. Again, these holes are scarily unavoidable.
These and more, are at the forefront of a lot of expert's minds. and could very be the targets of hacking groups, both criminal and state affiliated. With that said, amidst the tensions with Russia possible planning a large scale cyber offensive, will we learn our lesson beforehand... or after?
--Sh7nk-Z0id
Any type of targeted attack on the ICS (Industrial Control System) would have dangerous implications. There have already been attacks on sectors of industry, and these attacks proved capable of succeeding. A power plant going down would leave a city dark, but this would happen slowly, and would have dire consequences.
[See below some articles, they go over this point very well.]
https://www.computerworld.com/article/24...-grid.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/che...1446a0bb5a
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/201...n-nyc.html
The loss of oil and Gas would put a damper on getting around, and keeping houses warm during cold winter nights, and a cyber-attack like this one during a bad winter in say...New York City, would quite literally be a black winter. And sadly enough, no matter how many walls we put up, there is always someone somewhere who has the spine of a rat, and finds their way in. A certain gas and/or oil company could have a disgruntled former employee who wants to get back at them. Here is where a major hole is; with the employees of a target company. They could be exploited for any number of reasons (Some of these reasons are quite obvious, while others are more subtle.) This is right here is pure, unrefined lack of foresight on the part of the company and it is completely unavoidable. There is one bad apple in every batch, and there always will be.
Just pour over a country's current political and societal quirks and intricacies and you have a mess of exploits that could cripple a city, or even a state. [Remember, a single seedling can start a whole garden] . Back to companies not having the best cyber-security etiquette, if large [and very important] industrial sectors don't practice maximum etiquette then smaller more public sectors might have either the same if not worse etiquette. Again, these holes are scarily unavoidable.
These and more, are at the forefront of a lot of expert's minds. and could very be the targets of hacking groups, both criminal and state affiliated. With that said, amidst the tensions with Russia possible planning a large scale cyber offensive, will we learn our lesson beforehand... or after?
--Sh7nk-Z0id
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