Sectrio’s analysis of cyberattacks and online threats from January 3rd, 2022, shows an increased level of sophistication in cyberattacks targeting large Manufacturers and Oil and Gas Entities. Attacks concentrated on the SCADA systems and ICS deployments, IoT devices, and core systems. Cyberattacks on IoT platforms are also on an upswing as hackers target data and operational integrity of IoT deployments.
Geo-political attacks targeting widespread supply chain disruption and destabilization of government and administrative systems were seen in Ukraine and parts of the Middle East. We have seen a significant deterioration of the cybersecurity environment in the Eastern European and Baltic countries over the last few weeks. Hackers are trying to snoop on official and business conversations to identify targets of interest for cyberattacks in these countries. The level of interest among hackers is certainly well above the baseline levels.
US, Singapore, UK, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Israel, India, Thailand, and South Africa are the countries where we are seeing a significant rise in reconnaissance activity by hackers through stealthy malware. This trend could point to an increase in cyberattacks in the next few months as hackers study the security architecture of systems and figure out ways to affect a breach.
Businesses in the manufacturing, oil and gas, and utility verticals should urgently conduct facility-level cybersecurity audits to measure the robustness of their cyber risk management plans at a micro-level. Sectrio also recommends that businesses should adhere to NIST cybersecurity mandates and complete deployment of frameworks such as IEC 62443 and Zero Trust.
Weekly advisory
Segments under this list must be on high alert in the coming weeks:
- Critical Infrastructure
- Maritime/shipping
- Government
- Oil and gas
- Manufacturing
- Water and water treatment
- Enterprise
- Governments
- Financial services