Researchers at SecureWorks have reported a 90 percent increase in attackers caught targeting utilities during the past five months.
The Atlanta-based company has seen an average of 93 hackers targeting
each client per day during the past five months.
From January to April of this year, researchers found an
average of 49 attackers targeting utilities per day.
SecureWorks manages security for 100 utilities, according to
a news release issued this week.
Wayne Haber, director of development at SecureWorks, told SCMagazineUS.com
today that many of the attacks targeted web browsers, meaning they could be
attempts to enlarge botnets.
“What we tend to see with browser attacks is that they're
trying to create more bots for the botnets,” he said. "We've been researching
and trying to see why [there are increasing targets against utilities], and it
might be that they have a large number of workstations, which would make them
interesting to people creating botnets.”