By 2022, two in five (40.6%) of operational technology (OT) computers used in industrial environments will be affected by malware.
This data comes from a report published today by Kaspersky security researchers. This figure is 6% higher than in the first half and almost 1.5 times higher than in the second half of 2021.
“Overall, 2022 stands out for its unusual lack of seasonal changes. Kirill Kruglov, senior researcher at Kaspersky ICS CERT, commented on the findings of the report.
“However, the increasing rate of attacks in the industrial sector using social engineering is alarming.”
In fact, Kaspersky’s latest report suggests that the top two malware categories the team sees—malicious scripts and phishing pages—have increased in the second half of 2022. Malicious web resources.
Kaspersky also uses malicious scripts to enable the download of various malicious programs or to load malware such as spyware and secret cryptocurrency mining tools in users’ browsers. I also confirmed that there is
From a geographic perspective, Northern Europe was the only region that saw an increase in the spread of malware through email clients. Africa, Middle East, Asia, and Latin America topped the regional rankings for most OT computers compromised using removable devices.
Additionally, the report found that attacks targeting the automotive manufacturing and energy sectors increased significantly, accounting for 36.9% and 34.5% of all industries.
“We strongly recommend customers in these areas to review their existing approach to security and ensure that all security systems are up to date and personnel are well trained,” Kruglov said. concluded.
Kaspersky’s data comes nearly two months after a SecurityScorecard report suggested that 48% of critical U.S. manufacturing organizations were vulnerable to a data breach.
