Threat level critical: protecting your infrastructure business from cybercriminals

Critical business infrastructure under attack

Cyber criminals are targeting critical infrastructure businesses at an alarming rate; they know that they can maximise their impact by targeting firms with large supply chains – those in manufacturing, energy, and utilities, for example. Of course, assessing and securing supply chain vulnerabilities is particularly pertinent right now – the MOVEit hack highlights how severe the damage can be if multiple businesses (or even contractors) are implicated in an attack.

A recent IBM report reveals that the manufacturing sector was the most targeted sector for ransomware cyber attacks and the most extorted industry in 2022. Everyone remembers the Norsk Hydro attack in 2019, which shows how devastating a single error can be. One employee opens an infected email from a customer, attackers take hold of internal infrastructure, and the financial impact of the attack reaches $71 million. The global disruption and reputational damage is severe.

Infecting emails like this is just one of a range of tactics used by cyber criminals to gain access to internal systems and critical data. Recently, the NCSC warned that these threats are particularly prevalent from state-aligned groups who are ready to launch ‘destructive and disruptive attacks’.

Many firms are wary of taking their critical infrastructure offline to update or refresh their security posture. But with attacks as common and as sophisticated as they are, the cost-benefit surely falls in favour of doing all you can now to avoid a disastrous cyber attack in the future.

Doubling down on your security strategies in this way is a challenge. Critical infrastructure systems can be complex and are often composed of thousands of IoT devices connected to central networks. To an attacker, these devices are simply additional vectors to exploit.

Historically, many firms have relied on traditional security methods to secure their environments – including firewalls and basic malware protection tools. However, in the current threat landscape, this simply isn’t enough.

At Appurity we believe that by leveraging the power of artificial intelligence, critical infrastructure firms can ensure every one of their endpoints is properly secured. Predictive protection, provided by technologies such as CylanceENDPOINT™ from BlackBerry Cybersecurity, can protect and prevent malicious attacks before they’ve taken hold.

We also advocate for a security strategy that puts visibility at its core. Only by knowing exactly who and what is connected to your networks can you understand unusual patterns of behaviour or access attempts. All too often malware is hiding, undetected, in internal systems, waiting for the right moment to attack. BlackBerry’s Compromise Assessment identifies indicators of compromise (IOCs) within systems, investigates the findings, and highlights how firms can remediate their vulnerabilities.

These efforts enable a positive, proactive approach to cybersecurity that protects your users, devices, data, systems, and supply chains – so that you can focus on business-critical operations as usual.