In a time of war and energy crisis, protecting our critical infrastructure has never been more crucial. According to a report by EnergiCERT, there have been 48 successful cyber-attacks against the European utility and energy sector since 2015. Of these, 20 have occurred in 2022 and of these, six Danish energy companies were affected, including the wind turbine manufacturer Vestas.
Read the article about the importance of protecting our critical infrastructure.
Protection of critical infrastructure
In recent years, there has been a propagation of methods and tools on the Internet aimed at, among other vulnerabilities in industrial equipment and workflows. These tools make it easier for hackers to find vulnerabilities in societal and critical infrastructure that can be exploited in destructive cyber-attacks. Perhaps, it is not physical attacks against the energy sector that one should worry most about in the future?
According to the Defense Intelligence Service in Denmark, the cyber threat toward the energy sector is serious. So serious, in fact, that in June the Center for Cyber Security in Denmark (CFCS) upgraded the threat assessment for cyberespionage and crime to “very high” – the highest possible threat level.
In recent times, we have seen cyber-attacks which gives an understanding of how important and essential it is to secure a country’s critical infrastructure. Through so-called destructive cyber-attacks, critical infrastructure such as the electricity grid or gas lines can be crucially affected. In Ukraine, the attacks in both 2015 and 2016 resulted in outright blackouts, in which Russia shut down the electricity and phone lines, so the outage could not be reported. However, Ukraine is far from the only country that has been exposed to cyber-attacks.
Cyber security threat is not short-lived
Companies are attacked every day, but there are dark figures within the field. Either the company does not report that they have been attacked, or they do not know that they have been attacked at all. Companies must learn to consider safety in everything they do. Safety should not be an option and something that is done when it’s on fire – or when it’s too late. It must be a basic prerequisite for the work of all authorities and companies. Unfortunately, the cyber security threat is not short-lived – but a new normal that requires us to act accordingly every single day.
Focus on critical infrastructure
The annual International Industrial Security Conference the 14-16th November focuses on the importance of critical infrastructure. The program has been made in collaboration with six OT/IT experts within especially industrial security, with a focus on high professionalism and “need to know” content.
For the 2 international days of the conference, we fly in some of the world’s leading experts such as Joe Slowik, Patrick Miller, Stephen Hilt and Mark Bristow.
Day 1 of the conference is made exclusively for Danish companies with topics such as Cyber threats in Denmark, NIS2 and much more. Among other, you can hear two highly relevant presentations from EnergiCERT about Lessons learned from the war in Ukraine in relation to cyber-threats and types and examples of attacks in the energy sector in 2022.
Read more about the conference and sign up now!