cyber attacks in energy sector

Leaders in oil and gas are embarking on a wave of digital transformation of the business. Here are six principles to improve the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure. They also explain the tactics behind the various types of attacks on the energy industry and analyse in detail the approach of a current phishing campaign on a utility company to find out what possible target lies behind the attack. In this regard, the risks looming over the energy sector were revealed "d": "DOW JONES Index" A successful cyberattack in the energy sector could have far-reaching implications, beyond those of just the facility or the organization, due to the critical nature of their services to those other organizations that rely on energy to function. As one of the largest and most sophisticated economies, an attack to the U.S. energy sector is the holy grail for cybercriminals. Data sharing and interconnectivity; 4. Additionally, the policy should require passwords to be changed regularly, and prevent reuse of old passwords. The attack nearly triggered an explosion in Saudi Arabia—and the attack was designed to do greater damage. For example, if Russian hackers can disrupt the reliability of the European electricity grid using cyber, it might strengthen the case for greater reliance on natural gas, a commodity Russia supplies, and with that reliance, a vastly improved longer-term strategic pipeline asset for influencing European politics. }, The digital energy sector includes five factors that increase its vulnerability to digital disruption or cyber threats: 1. Encryption is on by default for everything. "s": "USOIL", Copying a file to a USB drive and taking it home to work on it further may be a perfectly legitimate activity for an employee. Simply undertaking a one-and-done methodology will prove to be insufficient, in nearly every instance. Just like automation, this business decision increases the possibility of a cyberattack. 4 Only two other sectors reported more incidents—critical manufacturing and communications. By convening industry leaders with NREL’s unique expertise and capabilities in systems integration, work developed under the consortium will help to strengthen energy-sector cybersecurity preparedness, coordinate cyber-incident response and recovery, and accelerate research, development and deployment of resilient energy systems. The ransomware attack that forced the closure of the largest U.S. fuel pipeline this weekend showed how cybercriminals pose a far-reaching threat to the aging, vulnerable infrastructure that keeps the nation’s energy moving. However, more and more cyber activity originates with state actors who have interests in destabilising entire economies for reasons other than purely theft of financial assets. Much ado about something: Growing cyber risk in the power sector. The biggest challenge in detecting an insider threat is identifying the legitimate activities of the employee from activities that would be indicative of wrongdoing. Cyberattacks in 2015 and 2016 on Ukraine’s power system have exposed a worldwide vulnerability to hacking aimed at crippling infrastructure. If a change ticket or request is not documented, it can be assumed to be malicious, or at least require further investigation by the IT security team. Ever since the BlackEnergy attacks in the Ukraine and the US, it has become a sad, although well known fact that the CNI sector and specifically the Energy Sector are frequently, if not constantly targeted to either disrupt, or infiltrate networks for future planned attacks. The 2019 Global Risk Report again pointed to cyber attacks as one of the key risks for the coming years, further indicating a growing trend toward attacks on critical infrastructure sectors such as electricity. Colonial Pipelines does not believe its industrial control systems were impacted, but only time will tell. { Pipeline, Bits, Bytes, and Barrels: The Digital Transformation of Oil and Gas, www.linkedin.com/in/training-digital-oil-gas. }, Cyber-attacks against the energy infrastructure now come to us not from Hollywood films but from news feeds. The resulting struggle pits the human ingenuity, AI tools, and bots of the criminal sector against the trained technical teams, AI tools, and bots of industry. "tabs": [ This past week, a petroleum products company, Colonial Pipelines of Georgia, suffered a ransom-ware attack, and as a precaution, the company shut down its pipeline operations until the business could be secured. Escalate Privileges — A key aspect of achieving the goal of any cyberattack is ensuring that the attacker has the rights necessary to access the areas of the network where the target data resides. Cyber defence teams are world-class, fully equipped and constantly trained, and augmented with industrial-grade tools. Countries with competitive oil supplies also stand to gain from disrupting the U.S.’s production and exports. And they can be put to more nefarious usage, namely cyber activity. Company-wide email communication is one of the most frequently used gateways for cyber-attacks. [9] “How long since you took a hard look at your cybersecurity?” 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report. Experts from RigNet believe that the average cost to recover a successful attack in energy is over $17m, more than 5 times the average. Hardware-based encryption also lessens the overhead burden on networks. Wireless links can be compromised at source and during the transmission of data. According to a new Cyber Threat Ranking Table from Hiscox, built from a global study on cyber readiness, energy companies in the UK were among the most likely to experience one or more cyber incidents over the last 12 months.. The US Department of Homeland Security tries to keep tabs on cyber activity and believes that over 50% of all cyber attacks from 2015 to 2019 have been aimed at energy infrastructure (power, oil, and gas). In 2018, Saudi Arabia experienced a worrisome attack of one of its petrochemical plants where the goal of the attack was to trigger an explosion. "s": "TVC:USOIL+NYMEX:WCW1! A key method and tenet of information security is the use of encryption. "s": "OANDA:NATGASUSD", }, These threats evolve with … Help us to improve EnergyNow, Give us your feedback, Russia denies involvement in Colonial Pipeline cyberattack, Global renewable energy grew at fastest pace in two decades in 2020 – IEA, OPEC sticks to 2021 oil demand growth forecast despite Indian COVID crisis, Oil Declines With Inflation Fears Eroding Market Confidence, Oilsands producers step up anti-pandemic measures as outbreaks rise in region, Suncor and ATCO partner on a potential world-scale clean hydrogen project in Alberta, Suncor Energy and Atco working together on potential hydrogen project, EnergyNow is hosting the Energy Innovation Month from June 1st to 30th, 2021, Clarifying Carbon Credits: An Undervalued Opportunity For Producers, O’Toole’s Carbon Taxes Would Come with Big Costs for Families – Franco Terrazzano, Reckless Michigan Politics: Line 5 Shutdown Would Cause at Least $20.8B in Losses to Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania, Analysis Finds, Renewed Cyber Worries in Oil and Gas – Geoffrey Cann, Oil Climbs With Gasoline as Cyberattack Knocks Out U.S. AI-backed monitoring is suddenly a mandatory. Take Digital Oil and Gas, the one-day on-line digital oil and gas awareness course. It is impossible to catch improper activity if it cannot be identified. TradingView.com Cybersecurity threats escalate in the energy sector. Services run a continuous program of penetration testing to detect weaknesses to be corrected. In 2016, using malware capable of deleting data and causing physical damage to industrial control systems, attackers successfully blacked out a portion of the capital city of Kiev. Cybersecurity in energy Scope of action (1/2): Develop solutions to make the energy sector more resilient to growing and more sophisticated cyber and privacy attacks, more cyber secure; Demonstrate the resilience of EPES through design and implementation of adequate measures able to make Stuxnet, a malicious computer worm believed to have been used to disable Iran’s nuclear program in 2010, has been called “a stone thrown by people who live in a glass house” by Marcus Ranum[1], one of the early innovators of the computer firewall, thus illustrating a new truism that, “The nations … that are most at risk of a destructive digital attack are the ones with the greatest connectivity.”[2]. "d": "TSX Energy" Cyber crime damages will cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021, up from $3 trillion in 2015. The group behind these attacks is known as Dragonfly. This is why DOE is committed to working with the private sector to increase cyber security and resiliency in the prevention of cyber-attacks. Mobile:  +1(587)830-6900 An obscure air-gapped device was the weakest link. In more than a quarter of the intrusions, the attack occurred due to spear-phishing emails, (which appear to be from an individual or business that the recipients know, but are not), that tricked employees into downloading infected attachments or clicking on malicious web links. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) this past month disclosed a disruptive cyberattack on a U.S. energy facility, raising new concerns about protections for energy providers. The escalation of attacks brought us to a tipping point in 2019. Increasing cyber risk in the energy sector. "d": "WTI Crude" The energy sector in Europe and North America is being targeted by a new wave of cyber attacks that could provide attackers with the means to severely disrupt affected operations. }, Access to assets is often left open beyond the service window, creating a point of weakness. Forward thinking criminals are already preparing for this new lucrative playground. These accounts typically have weak passwords, are not often changed, and have access to the most amount of data or systems. We’re adding code to things, and in extraordinary quantities, that are impossible to fully grasp. "largeChartUrl": "http://energynow.ca/data/", The rapid pace of innovation; 2. The logs generated by these tools are the first artifacts requested by forensic investigators when a suspected attack has occurred. All that code is potentially vulnerable to hacking. "d": "NYMEX Natural Gas" [3] Andreas Kleinschmidt, “Why We Will Still Need Oil and Gas in the Future,” Siemens, Feb. 22, 2016. Much of the world still labours under 2G, an older and more vulnerable telecoms standard. }, The employees of an organization are more likely to feel ownership of specific data or intellectual property, be more knowledgeable about security measures, and know where the “crown jewels” are kept. We are adding internet links to our legacy infrastructure. "s": "INDEX:CDNC", Investors, analysts, business leaders, and governments often use complex systems of classification to organize companies by industry group. { Energy sector most at risk of cyber incidents, Hiscox analysis reveals Analysis from Hiscox has revealed that the energy sector is most at risk of cyber incidents, seeing a median loss of over £100,000 within the last year as a result The finding comes despite the majority of firms having a dedicated cyber security role. { } With thousands of access points, sensors, equipment, networks, and industrial assets, each a potential cyber target, companies need all new tools to deal with the rising volume of activity. "d": "WCS Heavy" Cybersecurity for the energy sector is a multifaceted topic. With consumers and regulators looking at cybersecurity with more scrutiny than ever before, the global regulatory landscape should position organizations to demonstrate that information security is a priority. A cyber security law introduced three years ago was meant to boost the resilience of the UK's energy sector by obliging gas and electricity firms to report when they were hacked. UK energy sector firms failed to report cyber-attack incidents March 24, 2021 0 66 It has recently been revealed that cybersecurity legislation introduced three years ago – which was put in place to oblige gas and electricity firms to report when they were hacked – has been almost entirely ignored, confirms Sky News via IslandFM . Even if OT Systems Are Not Compromised, Cyberattacks Against IT Networks of Energy Suppliers Are Common. Oil rose after the weekend attack hit the Colonial Pipeline Company, the largest in the United States and which ships gasoline and jet fuel from Texas to the East Coast, serving 50 million consumers. The first known successful cyberattack on a power grid happened in the Ukraine in December 2015 using phishing emails with attached hidden malware – it blacked out approximately 230,000 houses. { It is impossible to develop a cohesive, forward-focused plan without knowing the organization’s current state of risk. The pace of digitalisation in the energy sector may potentially outpace cyber defence and digital management capabilities, resulting in greater exposure to risk. It only takes an attack on a single part of a single system to initiate a domino effect on much larger systems and entire plants/facilities and operations. Cyber threats are changing constantly, and the methods and tools necessary to detect and defend against attacks are being updated just as rapidly. Policymakers and utility operators are fighting an evermore sophisticated battle to keep the threat at bay. With the global proliferation of ransomware and emerging cyberattack strategies, organizations remain vulnerable. { Target Attainment — Often, an attacker will need to complete multiple iterations of the escalate privileges, internal reconnaissance, and lateral movement steps before completing the mission. Eighty percent is not an insignificant number — with basic, two-factor authentication an organization could immediately reduce its threat profile. Industry classifications rely on common characteristics, which make it easy to use these classifications when assigning levels of risk from various natural occurrences, seasonal influences, and technological changes. Access rights to the most sensitive files or areas of the network need to be kept to a bare minimum. { With 2020 behind us, here's is a list of 10 of the biggest, most damaging cyber attacks of last year. Preventing these accounts from having email addresses and access to the internet limits the exposure of those accounts to attack. The availability of free tools such as VeraCrypt, and over the-counter tools such as Pretty Good Privacy, make data encryption a free or low-cost method of securing data. The computer coding languages must be pretty easy to learn, and the techniques for making the apps seductive and mildly addictive must also be widely shared. To fully address the topic of preventing cyberattacks in the energy sector, it is important to understand the typical life cycle of an attack. "showChart": true, Further, an attack against the energy producers with larger market share would be orders of magnitude greater. Our goal is to identify and outline best practices, risk mitigation techniques, and provide statistics and case examples that can be used to help organizations justify the actions necessary to strengthen their defenses. September 7, 2017. Leading companies approach this new problem by applying the latest digital tools, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robots, to cope with cyber activity. Firstly, electricity IT networks have been targeted (via ransomware attacks) by organized crime gangs seeking financial gain. Cyber protection was a key factor when it came to identifying the level of risk for the sector, with only 68% of firms in the energy sector having a cyber insurance policy. The first known successful cyberattack on a power grid happened in the Ukraine in December 2015 using phishing emails with attached hidden malware – it blacked out approximately 230,000 houses. Finally, we’re going to unleash a brand new wave of innovation — autonomous transportation, smart manufacturing, smart cities, digital farming — that will add to the opportunity for cyber criminality, in ways we have yet to fully understand. } A 2019 report by Deloitte disclosed that the energy sector is one of the most targeted industries. Check out my book, ‘Bits, Bytes, and Barrels: The Digital Transformation of Oil and Gas’, available on Amazon and other on-line bookshops. A common method used by attackers to infiltrate a network is through the administrative accounts. ", That way, cyber defence gets some organizational attention. It’s a nice example of the increasingly novel ways in which the energy sector has to remain vigilant to cyber attack, and underlines why a recent report from Accenture on digital trends in the energy sector saw cybersecurity placed as the main focus for industry professionals. 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