These incidents highlight the variety of organizations, industries, and installations that could be impacted by opportunistic hackers, sometimes with serious potential consequences for human safety and health. The increase in hacktivist activity against ICS also prompted the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), along with other government agencies, to issue an alert to operational technology (OT) asset owners last year.
Organizations have a legitimate need to remotely manage and monitor their industrial control systems. However, this should be done through secure and tested protocols such as VPNs with multi-factor authentication, rather than exposing control interfaces directly to the internet. This applies to programmable logic controllers (PLCs), remote terminal units (RTUs), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, human-machine interfaces (HMIs), safety instrumented systems (SIS), building management systems (BMS), and industrial internet of things (IIoT) devices.
“Provincial and territorial governments are encouraged to coordinate with municipalities and organizations within their jurisdictions to ensure all services are properly inventoried, documented, and protected,” the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security said in its alert. “This is especially true for sectors where regulatory oversight does not cover cybersecurity, such as water, food, or manufacturing.”
