• TREND MICRO
  • ABOUT
Search:
  • Latest Posts
  • Categories
    • Android
    • AWS
    • Azure
    • Cloud
    • Compliance
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Cybercrime
    • Encryption
    • Financial Services
    • Government
    • Hacks
    • Healthcare
    • Internet of Everything
    • Malware
    • Microsoft
    • Mobile Security
    • Network
    • Privacy
    • Ransomware
    • Security
    • Social Media
    • Small Business
    • Targeted Attacks
    • Trend Spotlight
    • Virtualization
    • Vulnerabilities
    • Web Security
    • Zero Day Initiative
    • Industry News
  • Our Experts
    • Ed Cabrera
    • Rik Ferguson
    • Greg Young
    • Mark Nunnikhoven
    • Jon Clay
    • William “Bill” Malik
  • Research
Home   »   Critical Infrastructure   »   Critical Infrastructure Under Attack: The Vulnerability of Converged IT-ICS Networks

Critical Infrastructure Under Attack: The Vulnerability of Converged IT-ICS Networks

  • Posted on:January 22, 2016
  • Posted in:Critical Infrastructure, Security
  • Posted by:
    Ed Cabrera (Chief Cybersecurity Officer)
0
The electrical gird is a growing target of cyber attacks.

Successful cyber attacks against critical infrastructure have been steadily increasing in frequency and complexity over the last ten years. In our 2015 “Cyber Security of Critical Infrastructures in Americas” report, more than 575 public and private owner operators from 20 countries were surveyed, and the results were beyond eye-opening. Fifty-three percent said critical infrastructure (CI) cyber attacks have increased over the previous year, and 76 percent claimed they had grown in sophistication. Even more telling was that 44 percent said they were victims of malicious “delete and destroy” attacks.

CI cyber attacks reached a significant milestone in 2015 with the December 23 outage at two of Ukraine’s top energy distributors where destructive malware was used in a broader more sophisticated attack. Through this attack, 80,000 customers lost power for six hours, cutting at least seven 110 kV and 23 35 kV substations.

Stateside, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s (DART) computer system was recently hacked, compromising the availability of critical travel information. The mass transit organization has reported no sensitive customer or employee information has been breached; however, the possibility of this information being breached in a future, similar incident is likely. While the attack isn’t catastrophic, it is extensive and highly sophisticated, and serves as another example of cybercriminals targeting critical infrastructure systems.

Today, chief information security officers (CISOs) are unprepared for the increasing convergence of once-isolated industrial control systems (ICS) and corporate networks. According to a 2015 SANS report, “The State of Security of Control Systems Today,” less than half of critical infrastructure CISOs surveyed actually have a strategy for IT-ICS convergence.

Business operations, now more than ever, demand real-time metrics for billing, as well as remote access for support that requires ICS networks to connect to external corporate networks and the Internet. A two-year study completed in 2014, Project SHINE (SHodan INtelligence Extraction) surveyed 2.2 million Internet-facing assets and documented 586,997 ICS devices, 13,475 HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) and building automation systems.

Vulnerable and insecure corporate networks that connect to ICS domains open themselves to destructive cyber attacks. Threat actors are able to exploit interdependent and complex networks to island hop from one insecure corporate asset to another before landing on the most vulnerable ICS assets and databases.

Interdependent and complex systems are the enemy of all risk managers. Only by reducing both can you more effectively manage risk and ensure resiliency. The menacing threat of cyber and destructive attacks in today’s rapidly evolving cyber threat landscape requires a comprehensive fortitude across corporate and ICS networks. Resiliency depends on the ability to timely identify threats and vulnerabilities; protect corporate and ICS infrastructure; quickly detect targeted attacks; and swiftly respond to contain damage and recover/restore operations.

Critical infrastructure CISOs have to maintain and routinely test comprehensive business continuity plans and procedures. The following are industry best practices when dealing with destructive attacks:

  • Segregate corporate and ICS networks to reduce island hopping attacks
  • Reduce and protect privileged users to minimize and contain lateral movement
  • Employ application whitelisting and file integrity monitoring to prevent execution by malicious codes
  • Reduce the attack surface by limiting workstation-to-workstation communication
  • Deploy robust network IPS, application-layer firewalls, forward proxies, and breach detection with sandboxing or other dynamic traffic and code analyses
  • Use and monitor host and network logging
  • Implement pass-the-hash mitigations
  • Deploy anti-malware reputation services to augment traditional signature-based anti-virus
  • Run host intrusion-prevention systems
  • Quickly shield and patch known operating system and software vulnerabilities

To learn more on the state of critical infrastructure in the Americas, visit: http://www.trendmicro.com/us/security-intelligence/research-and-analysis/critical-infrastructures-security.

Related posts:

  1. The OAS and Trend Micro: Building a More Secure Critical Infrastructure for the Americas
  2. Understanding the Attack Surface for Critical Infrastructure
  3. Challenges with Critical Infrastructure: IoT, Smart Cities Under Attack
  4. Safeguarding the Nation’s Critical Infrastructure

Security Intelligence Blog

  • Our New Blog
  • How Unsecure gRPC Implementations Can Compromise APIs, Applications
  • XCSSET Mac Malware: Infects Xcode Projects, Performs UXSS Attack on Safari, Other Browsers, Leverages Zero-day Exploits

Featured Authors

Ed Cabrera (Chief Cybersecurity Officer)
Ed Cabrera (Chief Cybersecurity Officer)
  • Ransomware is Still a Blight on Business
Greg Young (Vice President for Cybersecurity)
Greg Young (Vice President for Cybersecurity)
  • Not Just Good Security Products, But a Good Partner
Jon Clay (Global Threat Communications)
Jon Clay (Global Threat Communications)
  • This Week in Security News: Ransomware Gang is Raking in Tens of Millions of Dollars and Microsoft Patch Tuesday Update Fixes 17 Critical Bugs
Mark Nunnikhoven (Vice President, Cloud Research)
Mark Nunnikhoven (Vice President, Cloud Research)
  • Twitter Hacked in Bitcoin Scam
Rik Ferguson (VP, Security Research)
Rik Ferguson (VP, Security Research)
  • The Sky Has Already Fallen (you just haven’t seen the alert yet)
William
William "Bill" Malik (CISA VP Infrastructure Strategies)
  • Black Hat Trip Report – Trend Micro

Follow Us

Trend Micro In The News

  • Trend Micro Goes Global to Find Entrepreneurs Set to Unlock the Smart Connected World
  • Winners of Trend Micro Global Capture the Flag Demonstrate Excellence in Cybersecurity
  • Companies Leveraging AWS Well-Architected Reviews Now Benefit from Security Innovations from Trend Micro
  • Trend Micro Announces World's First Cloud-Native File Storage Security
  • Digital Transformation is Growing but May Be Insecure for Many
  • Home and Home Office
  • |
  • For Business
  • |
  • Security Intelligence
  • |
  • About Trend Micro
  • Asia Pacific Region (APAC): Australia / New Zealand, 中国, 日本, 대한민국, 台灣
  • Latin America Region (LAR): Brasil, México
  • North America Region (NABU): United States, Canada
  • Europe, Middle East, & Africa Region (EMEA): France, Deutschland / Österreich / Schweiz, Italia, Россия, España, United Kingdom / Ireland
  • Privacy Statement
  • Legal Policies
  • Copyright © 2017 Trend Micro Incorporated. All rights reserved.