Chatham House
gave a talk on the project findings thus far at the NATO Advanced
Research Workshop: Strengthening Cyber Defense for Critical
Infrastructure in Kiev, Ukraine on 30-31 October 2014. The meeting was
organized by the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) in
partnership with the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation.
We spoke on the panel entitled, "How is the Threat Environment Evolving" which looked at:
Most of the companies
operating Critical Infrastructure (CI) have already experienced
cyber-attacks and it is only a matter of time before a large scale
attack happens. The majority of the attempts will come from non-state
players. Although they do not possess the skills and extensive funding
to create sophisticated weapons, they can challenge the stability of
networks by performing a significant number of different types of
attacks and intrusions. Even low end hackers without sophisticated
skills can use a black market of cyber crime services and goods such as
“zero day vulnerabilities” (previously undisclosed security holes in
software), which can be used for infiltration of CI systems.
Additionally, non-state players create well organised and structured
criminal gangs, possibly comprising thousands of individuals around the
world, who are more effective due to the synergy effect.
States
are able to develop sophisticated cyber-weapons but they will use them
sparingly so as not to disclose their capabilities. The risk that
advanced cyber-warfare capabilities will be developed or acquired by
unsophisticated hackers or terrorists should be regarded as low, but
cannot be disregarded.
Power grids are cheap to attack, and it
should be expected that they will remain a primary warfare target.
Attacks against energy infrastructure already make 60% of all the
attacks against CI. It is also the sector that, should it be affected,
will most likely trigger a cascade of negative effects to other sectors.
For more details:
https://www.facebook.com/NATOarwSCfCI?fref=photo
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