The devices that pose a threat to critical infrastructure

Operational technology and industrial control system devices represent an attractive target for cybercriminals attempting to access networks, and for nation state actors looking to disrupt infrastructure.

Asset visibility and security company Armis is releasing new research identifying the riskiest devices that pose threats to critical infrastructure industries: manufacturing, utilities and transportation.

Engineering workstations are the OT device that received the most attempts of attack in the industry in the past two months, followed by SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) servers. 56 percent of engineering workstations are found to have at least one unpatched critical severity CVE and 16 percent are susceptible to at least one weaponized CVE, published more than 18 months ago.

Uninterruptible power supplies are also subject to attack, with data showing that 60 percent of UPS devices have at least one unpatched critical severity CVE. 41 percent of programmable logic controllers also have at least one unpatched severe CVE.

A set of additional devices also represent risk to manufacturing, transportation and utilities environments as they have at least one weaponized CVE published before January 2022. These include 85 percent of barcode readers, 32 percent of industrial managed switches, 28 percent of IP cameras and 10 percent of printers.

"In an ICS environment it's pretty common to have vulnerable devices, so professionals need to see what assets are on their network and additional intelligence on what those devices are actually doing," says Nadir Izrael CTO and co-founder of Armis. "Contextual data will enable teams to define what risk each device poses to the OT environment so that they can prioritize remediation of critical and/or weaponized vulnerabilities to quickly reduce the attack surface."

The report shows that four out of the five riskiest devices run Windows operating systems, highlighting how a basic understanding of asset risk and securing vulnerable assets can still be a challenge for IT and OT teams.

"From an organizational perspective, having a risk-based approach to vulnerability management must go hand in hand with OT and IT departments working together to help coordinate mitigation efforts," ads Izrael. "Cross-departmental projects will help streamline process and resource management and achieve greater compliance and data security. Overall, to navigate the challenges of the new industrial era, security professionals need an IT/OT convergence security solution that shields all assets connected to the network."

You can find out more about protecting against these threats on the Armis site.

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