Energy, Utilities Attacks Inside IT Networks Rise

According to a new report published by Vectra, there is a key distinction between attacks that probe IT networks for information about critical infrastructure and those attacks that actually target industrial control systems (ICSs). The 2018 Spotlight Report on Energy and Utilities found that most cyber-attacks against energy and utilities firms occur and succeed inside enterprise IT networks, not in the critical infrastructure. Given these findings, detecting hidden threat behaviors inside enterprise IT networks before attackers have a chance to spy, spread and steal becomes all the more critical, according to the report. Attackers are taking their time and carefully orchestrating attack campaigns so that they occur over the course of several months