Critical Infrastructure More Vulnerable Than Ever Before

Despite widespread awareness of the physical and data-related danger inherent in exposing critical infrastructure to cyberattack, the number of internet-accessible industrial control systems (ICS) is increasing every year.

According to a report from Positive Technologies, advanced industrial countries, such as the US, Germany, China, France and Canada, are home to the largest numbers of internet-accessible ICS components, which run factories, transport, power plants and other facilities. Of the 175,632 internet-accessible ICS components detected, approximately 42% were in the US, representing a 10% increase over the previous year (from 50,795 to 64,287).

This is a long stretch above second place, where Germany sits the second year in a row with 13,242 discovered. That’s up from 12,542 in 2016. The PT research team also noted that more and more Internet-accessible ICS components are actually network devices, such as Lantronix and Moxa interface converters, which represented 12.86% of detected components in 2017, up from 5.06% in 2016. Although these converters are often regarded as relatively unimportant, they can be quite useful for hackers, the firm noted