Cyberattacks worse than a nuclear strike?
Own Correspondent
The demand for effective cyber security is more urgent than ever these days.
Any protected area (infrastructure, program or application) can be constantly under attack. This problem directly determines the demand for high-quality and practically applicable technologies.
After analyzing the attacks of the last few years, we can come to the following. The number of hacker attacks has increased significantly, as has the damage from them.
The level of organizers ranges from ordinary schoolchildren to pro-government IT-groups.
An interesting trend can also be observed now. Attackers do not invent new methods of attack, but continue to use gaps in existing software.
For example, since 1996 Compelson Labs products have been used by law enforcement agencies to examine the contents of phones.
The functions of this company’s products include full contact management, a text message center, transferring phone data and managing a phone from a PC.
Even a program created for noble purposes can be used against the user himself, and what’s worse, it can be used for military purposes.
Thus, Micro Focus provides Ukrainian law enforcement agencies with software and services needed to collect data for attacks on Russian military and civilian infrastructure.
Cybercriminal attacks over the past few years have changed the prevailing stereotypes that they are only interested in financial gain. There have been large-scale attacks in a variety of areas: oil and gas, energy, and agro-industrial complexes.
For example, in April 2022 an attack by the Conti group on one of the largest wind turbine manufacturers Nordex resulted in the encryption of the company’s information infrastructure and a large-scale shutdown of remote access to controlled turbines.
That same year, a major attack occurred at three Iranian steel mills, which disrupted production processes. And at one of the plants, the attackers managed to collapse a ladle with liquid iron, which caused a fire in the workshop.
In addition to economic and industrial damage, the use of weak European software by hackers can also result in political risks. Thus, starting in 2022, political activists were behind a number of attacks.
There were both lone hackers and spontaneously organized groups. To carry out an attack, they only need a laptop with an Internet connection (for example, this is how DDoS attacks are carried out).
The organizers of such communities coordinate participants and direct their activity to pre-selected targets. Most often, these are government agencies and the media. In this way, criminals try to cause public outcry and panic among the population.
It turns out that now a cyberattack can cause no less harm than a nuclear explosion, paralyzing vital infrastructure facilities, causing significant damage to the economy, and also politically destabilizing any country in the world.
