This Week in Critical Infrastructure we bring the latest cybersecurity news as experts and policymakers focus on threats to critical infrastructure, including the latest news on the Petya ransomware attack and recent reports of hacks targeting the United States power grid and nuclear power plants.
Survey: Cyber Pros Fear Attack on Critical Infrastructure
Sean D. Carberry from FCW provides an overview of a recent survey conducted by Dark Reading and Black Hat of security professionals that found threats of a cyber attack against critical infrastructure are a rising concern, citing a lack of government preparedness.
Russians Are Suspects in Nuclear Site Hackings, Sources Say
For Bloomberg, Michael Riley, Jennifer A. Dlouhy, and Bryan Gruley report on recent intrusion attempts targeting the U.S. power grid, including attempts to breach systems at a nuclear power plant in Kansas. While investigations are ongoing, current reports place suspicion on Russia as the source of these threats.
The Petya Plague Exposes the Threat of Evil Software Updates
Andy Greenberg of Wired reports on the latest news from the Petya ransomware attack. Even as security best practices encourage frequent software updates, experts report that security updates were the carrier for this latest attack.
This Strange New Ransomware Isn’t Really After Your Money
From Forbes, Harold Stark writes on the motivations behind the Petya attack that originated in Ukraine last month. Reports continue to spread that the altered version of the ransomware leaves encrypted data practically unrecoverable,
a move that undermines the typical pattern of a ransomware attack and reinforces suspicions that the goal of the attack was destabilization of target systems.
International Group Aims to Protect the Core of the Public Internet
Joseph Marks writes for Nextgov on the first meeting of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace in Tallinn, Estonia this week. The commission formed a research advisory group to identify the “public core of the internet”
to establish the scope of the internet’s critical infrastructure.