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One in three OT computers in SA attacked in H1 2022

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 10 Oct 2022

Over the last six months various types of malicious objects were blocked on every third industrial control system (ICS) environment in South Africa, an 11% increase from the second half of 2021.

This was revealed by an ICS threat landscape report by Kaspersky.

ICS computers are used in oil and gas, energy, automotive manufacturing, building automation infrastructures, and other spheres to perform a range of operational technology (OT) functions – from the workstations of engineers and operators to supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) servers and human machine interfaces (HMIs).

Attacks against OT are considered to be extremely dangerous as they have the ability to cause material losses, human losses, and production downtime for the controlled production line and even the facility as a whole.

Moreover, industrial enterprises put out of service can seriously undermine a region’s social welfare, ecology and macro-economics.

Attack methods

Malicious scripts and phishing pages were among the most popular means of attacking ICS computers in Africa, according to this report. In H1 2022 such scripts and pages were blocked on 19% of ICS computers in South Africa, a 12% increase from H2 2021.

Similarly, around every tenth ICS computer in the African regions in H1 2022 had spyware on it blocked. In SA specifically, spyware was blocked on 9% of ICS computers.

Emad Haffar, head of technical experts at Kaspersky, says sophisticated attacks have seen the demand for better visibility of the cyber-risks that impact industrial control systems increase dramatically.

“The integration of IT and OT systems has highlighted the need for a comprehensive yet purposely built cyber security program. Digital transformation programs require a new approach to ensure the secure deployment and operation of a variety of new, potentially unsafe devices within plant boundaries,” he says.

Improving security, response

To keep OT computers protected from various threats, Kaspersky experts recommend conducting regular security assessments of OT systems to identify and eliminate possible cyber security issues. Dedicated industrial cyber security solutions can be effective, as well as a source of unique actionable information, not fully available in public, and EDR solutions are good for the timely detection of sophisticated threats, investigation, and effective remediation of incidents.

In addition, the security giant recommends performing timely updates for the key components of the enterprise’s OT network. Applying security fixes and patches or implementing compensating measures as soon as it is technically possible is crucial for preventing a major incident that might cost millions due to the interruption of the production process.

Finally, Kaspersky advises improving the response to new and advanced malicious techniques by building and strengthening teams’ incident prevention, detection, and response skills through dedicated OT security training.

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