Barracuda: Critical Infrastructure Increasingly Under Attack

Organizations are struggling to protect operational technology (OT) and are getting breached as a result.

That’s according to Barracuda Networks’ State of Industrial Security in 2022 report. Commissioned by Barracuda, the research surveyed 800 senior IT managers, senior IT security managers, and project managers responsible for IIoT/OT in their organization.

Overall, the research shows that critical infrastructure is under attack, and despite agreement that IIoT and OT security is critical, businesses are facing some significant challenges as the geopolitical landscape becomes increasingly tense.

Security breaches have shown to have impacts beyond monetary losses as well, resulting in significant downtime with long-lasting breach impact.

Among the findings:

• Attacks are widespread as 94% of organizations surveyed acknowledged experiencing a security incident in the last 12 months.
• Eighty-nine percent of respondents are very or fairly concerned about the impact that the current threat landscape and geopolitical situation will have on their organizations.
• Breaches are impacting operations as 87% of organizations that experienced an incident were impacted for more than one day.

Tim Jefferson is Barracuda‘s senior vice president of engineering for data, networks and application security.

“In the current threat landscape, critical infrastructure is an attractive target for cybercriminals, but unfortunately IIoT/OT security projects often take a backseat to other security initiatives or fail due to cost or complexity, leaving organizations at risk,” he said. “Issues such as the lack of network segmentation and the number of organizations that aren’t requiring MFA leave networks open to attack and require immediate attention.”

Organizations across the board have acknowledged the importance of investing even further in IIoT and OT security, with 96% of business leaders saying their organization needs to increase their investment in industrial security. A full 72% of organizations said they have either already implemented or are in the process of implementing IIoT/OT security projects. But many are facing significant challenges when it comes to implementation, including basic cyber hygiene.

For organizations with completed IIoT and OT security projects, 75% have experienced no impact at all from a major incident.

Klaus Gheri is Barracuda‘s vice president of network security.

“IIoT attacks go beyond the digital realm and can have real-world implications.” he said. “As attacks continue to rise across industries, taking a proactive security approach when it comes to industrial security is critical for businesses to avoid being the next victim of an attack.”