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 The Department of Homeland Security's Industrial Control Systems
Cybersecurity Emergency Response Team, or ICS-CERT, said in a report
distributed this week that it investigated 97 incidents at critical
manufacturers during its most-recent fiscal year.
That category includes makers of vehicles and other types of
transportation equipment as well as metals, machinery and electrical
equipment producers.
ICS-CERT said that altogether it responded to a total of 295 cyber
incidents, up 20 percent from the previous fiscal year.
After critical manufacturing, the next most active sectors were
energy, with 46 incidents, water, with 25, and transportation
systems, with 23, according to the report. (1.usa.gov/1lepgB4)
The document did not say whether any of the incidents caused outages
or say who was behind them. A DHS spokesman declined to elaborate.
Cyber experts say that such incidents could be caused by
unintentional infections of criminal malware, nations and criminals
gathering data to prepare for potential destructive attacks in the
future, or attacks looking to disrupt service.
The annual data provides a rare glimpse into investigations by
ICS-CERT, a body that helps critical infrastructure operators defend
against cyber attacks. ICS-CERT provides more detailed data on cyber
incidents through private channels including a secure web portal.
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ICS-CERT released the data after the agency's chief, Marty Edwards,
on Wednesday warned of an increase in attacks that he said were
caused by operators exposing industrial control systems to the
Internet.
“I am very dismayed at the accessibility of some of these
networks... They are just hanging right off the tubes," he said at
the S4 security conference in Miami.
He did not provide statistics detailing the extent of the increase.
Industrial control systems are computer systems that run industrial
processes at facilities ranging from energy plants and steel mills
to water systems and breweries.
(Reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Alistair Bell)
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