Security News > 2020 > September > Industrial Cyberattacks Get Rarer but More Complex

Security experts say they are encouraged by the anemic growth, but at the same time are expressing concern that attacks are now becoming more potent, targeted and complex.

According to new research from Kaspersky, 37.8 percent of computers tied to the industrial control systems segment suffered attacks in the first half of 2020, which represents only a 2 percentage increase.

"All of the detected worm samples, both in Python and in PowerShell, are capable of collecting authentication credentials from the memory of system processes on the attacked machines in order to spread within the network," according to the research.

The Kaspersky analysis also looked at the possible impact of COVID-19 and remote working on the cyberattack landscape for ICS, which it did by assessing the statistics of attacks on Remote Desktop Protocol on industrial computers.

"The increase in the percentage of attacked ICS computers on which attempts to brute force the RDP password were detected may seem insignificant, but it should be remembered that any such attack, if successful, would immediately have provided the attackers with remote access to engineering computers and ICS systems," according to the report.

News URL

https://threatpost.com/industrial-cyberattacks-rarer-complex/159573/