Breaches that result in the theft of millions of pieces of personal data get big headlines, such as those involving retailers, hospitals and government agencies.
But attacks on industrial control systems — sometimes called SCADA systems — are quietly increasing as well, according to a new survey by the SANS Institute. According Siemens patches SCADA flaws
Almost 20 per cent of respondents who’d successfully been attacked said systems were breached for at least 24 hours before it was discovered, and 20 per cent reported that they could not determine how long the infiltration had been going on. Another 20 per cent said breaches weren’t detected for more than a week, and 15 per cent reported not knowing about the infiltration for more than a month.
The report also found worrying that only 20 per cent of respondents stated that qualification of security technologies by their ICS equipment vendors is mandatory, considering what it says is the critical nature of Site Acceptance Testing (SAT) of industrial control system components. Even more concerning, it added is that 25 per cent of respondents said it is only moderately important or not important. And 10% didn’t know how important it is to validate new security tools before introducing them into control systems. Most respondents (65 per cent) said vendor qualification of security technologies and solutions to be either highly important or mandatory.
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HPE Security Research: Cyber Risk Report 2015
In a world where more and more people and devices connect to the Internet, greater focus must be placed on security and privacy. The past year has seen the manifestation of several vulnerabilities that gathered a storm of media attention.
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