Cyber Operations on Critical Infrastructures – Tec-Bite IT Security Blog

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Since 2015, our Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) has been obliged to produce an annual report on the current threat situation for Switzerland and to make it available to our Federal Councils and the public. Among other things, it also discusses the increased terror threat in Switzerland since 2015.Attacks on Critical InfrastructuresHere is the full excerpt from the report, listed under point 3.4. It deals with attacks on critical infrastructures.Cyber operations against critical infrastructures can cause severe damage. Several federal agencies and private companies have fallen victim to foreign state-sponsored cyberattacks in recent years. These served political or economic intelligence purposes. The victims suffered significant damage.Their strengths in research and development make Switzerland a preferred target for states seeking political or economic dominance. Furthermore, critical infrastructures such as the Spiez Laboratory play an important role in the context of international security policy.The energy sector is increasingly the focus of espionage and reconnaissance campaigns. Targeted sabotage actions have so far been limited mainly to armed or strategic conflicts such as in Ukraine; hackers may also orchestrate attacks out of patriotism. Extensive physical damage has not yet been observed. However, in 2015 and 2016, cyberattacks led to power outages affecting several hundred thousand people in Ukraine. In May 2017, the WannaCry malware attack had significant effects on the emergency systems of hospitals in the United Kingdom. The more frequent such cyberattacks become, the greater the risk that Switzerland and its critical infrastructures will at least suffer collateral damage.Complete ReportThe complete report on the threat situation in Switzerland by the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) can be viewed here: www.newsd.admin.ch/newsd/message/attachments/56815.pdfAttack on the Power Grid & Transfer Fraud among Existing Office 365 CustomersIn early May, the Reporting and Analysis Centre for Information Assurance (MELANI) published its semi-annual report on information security. It describes an attack scenario on the power grid via IoT and a frequently perpetrated transfer fraud targeting Office 365 customers. More on this in another blog post at: www.tec-bite.ch/halbjahresbericht-von-melani-ueber-informationssicherheit/The article Cyber Operations on Critical Infrastructures – Report of the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) first appeared on Tec-Bite.