Industrial businesses were the second most targeted sector in 2020 and new research from Positive Technologies shows that an external attacker could penetrate the corporate network at 91 percent of them.
In addition, Positive Technologies penetration testers gained access to the industrial control system (ICS) networks at 75 percent of these companies. Once criminals have obtained access to ICS components, they can shutdown entire production lines, cause equipment to fail, or incidents that could cause serious harm.
Olga Zinenko, senior analyst at Positive Technologies, says, "Today, the level of cybersecurity at most industrial companies is too low for comfort. In most cases, Internet-accessible external network perimeters contain weak protection, device configurations contain flaws, and we find a low level of ICS network security and the use of dictionary passwords and outdated software versions present risks."