Security News > 2021 > May > Rising Cyberattacks in West Highlight Vulnerabilities
A series of high-profile cyberattacks on targets in the West have highlighted the vulnerability of companies and institutions, making the issue a higher public priority but with no easy solution.
The attack saw its computer systems encrypted, putting its operations offline and causing fuel shortages for American drivers.
At the end of 2020, US authorities also revealed that hackers had compromised SolarWinds software which was run by large parts of the US government and companies around the country.
Beyond the major incidents that make the news, cybersecurity firms and experts have been warning for years about the rising tide of online attacks - some state-orchestrated, some criminally motivated.
Larger organisations can afford specialised IT security teams and the best-equipped employ outside monitoring services to keep an eye on their networks and check for intrusions round-the-clock that foretell a major attack.
The National Cyber Power Index by the Belfer Centre at Harvard University puts the United States at the top of 30 countries ranked on their ambitions and cyber-capabilities, with China second, and Britain third.