Ransomware dominates OT security incidents

Operational technology security incidents impacted 46% of organizations around the world during the past year, with ransomware accounting for nearly half of such incidents, SecurityWeek reports. The United Arab Emirates and the U.S. had the highest percentage of ransomware attacks against OT systems, while such intrusions were mostly targeted at government, manufacturing, and healthcare entities, a report from TXOne showed. Active vulnerability exploitation and malware infections were also among the leading OT security incidents faced by organizations but more than three-quarters of surveyed organizations also expressed significant concern for state-backed cybersecurity threats. Meanwhile, most OT security incidents have been attributed to maintenance activities, including software and firmware updates, settings reconfigurations, and new app installations. "A typical situation is when an asset goes into maintenance and it's disconnected from other services, maintenance staff would install/copy something from that asset. That's the point that the malware can enter the system, mostly through removable storage media," said TXOne.