Impact, Vulnerabilities, and Mitigation Strategies for Cyber-Secure Critical Infrastructure

Abstract

Several critical infrastructures are integrating information technology into their operations, and as a result, the cyber attack surface extends over a broad range of these infrastructures. Cyber attacks have been a serious problem for industries since the early 2000s, causing significant interruptions to their ability to produce goods or offer services to their clients. The thriving cybercrime economy encompasses money laundering, black markets, and attacks on cyber-physical systems that result in service disruptions. Furthermore, extensive data breaches have compromised the personally identifiable information of millions of people. This paper aims to summarize some of the major cyber attacks that have occurred in the past 20 years against critical infrastructures. These data are gathered in order to analyze the types of cyber attacks, their consequences, vulnerabilities, as well as the victims and attackers. Cybersecurity standards and tools are tabulated in this paper in order to address this issue. This paper also provides an estimate of the number of major cyber attacks that will occur on critical infrastructure in the future. This estimate predicts a significant increase in such incidents worldwide over the next five years. Based on the study’s findings, it is estimated that over the next 5 years, 1100 major cyber attacks will occur on critical infrastructures worldwide, each causing more than USD 1 million in damages.

Firmware Updates over the Air via LoRa: Unicast and Broadcast Combination for Boosting Update Speed

“…They have the potential to inflict significant harm on businesses, products, and data. In [18], a summary of the major attacks that have occurred in the last 20 years against critical infrastructures was presented, also including an analysis of the types of attacks, consequences, vulnerabilities, victims, and attackers. The paper also provided an estimation of the number of major cyber attacks that will occur on critical infrastructure in the future.…”

Driving Technological Innovation for a Resilient Cybersecurity Landscape

“…Furthermore, transmission should be regulated in a way that the system developer should take precautions against cascading failures to improve the system's capacity to withstand the effects of a cyberattack. Since each of these failures is independent (Riggs et al, 2023). Large "domino effect" networks are likely to suffer significant damage in response to even small disturbances, which severely restricts the range of situations in which resilient operation and effective absorption and recovery are still feasible.…”

Water Supply Security—Risk Management Instruments in Water Supply Companies

“…Cyberattacks were identified as a relevant source of risk [16][17][18], although the risk to the technical systems in the study area is considered to be low due to the spatial separation of the systems. In the present case study, the operation of the water supply systems is only at low risk from cyberattacks.…”

“…Other threats to the water supply come from sabotage and acts of war. An increase in cyberattacks on critical infrastructure is currently to be expected [16][17][18].…”