Poorly secured IIoT systems are easy
Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2025 8:29 am
It is expected that 25.5 billion smart devices will be deployed worldwide in 2030 , and machine-to-machine connections worldwide could link more than half of the world's 28.5 billion connected devices by 2022.
Smart factories require hundreds, if not thousands, of IIoT devices to operate. Meanwhile, upgrades and security updates to ICS have traditionally been sporadic. Many systems are hopelessly outdated , some still running Windows XP, which has long been out of technical support.
According to a study by Trend Micro , more than half (61%) of manufacturing companies have experienced cybersecurity incidents in smart factories, with the majority (75%) resulting in system failures. In 43% of cases, outages lasted more than four days.
prey for hackers looking to expand their botnet networks. Unfortunately, botnets based on IoT devices are used to carry out the most destructive attacks.
IBM experts have been studying the dominican republic mobile database of Mozi, the largest IoT-based botnet, for four years now . According to the corporation, this botnet generated 90% of all IoT traffic last year. Experts are confident that the attackers who control Mozi can use it to initiate a number of attacks, including DDoS attacks.
DDoS attacks as a weapon of revenge
As a result of the “reformatting” of production according to Industry 4.0 standards, millions of people around the world will likely find themselves without work. Some of them will probably want to take revenge on their former employers.
DDoS attacks can be a possible tool for retaliation. Their "customers" do not necessarily need to know how to program or use hacker tools. The Darknet is full of offers for organizing DDoS attacks, and at very affordable prices. Damage from DDoS attacks already costs enterprises an average of $825,000 per attack. And this is despite the fact that the attacks that have taken place have had little effect on production systems and therefore have not led to failures and disasters at industrial facilities. But even non-catastrophic failures can, for example, disrupt the operation of supply chains, affecting many partners and clients of the enterprise. This means missed deadlines, breaches of contracts, penalties, reputational costs, etc.
Smart factories require hundreds, if not thousands, of IIoT devices to operate. Meanwhile, upgrades and security updates to ICS have traditionally been sporadic. Many systems are hopelessly outdated , some still running Windows XP, which has long been out of technical support.
According to a study by Trend Micro , more than half (61%) of manufacturing companies have experienced cybersecurity incidents in smart factories, with the majority (75%) resulting in system failures. In 43% of cases, outages lasted more than four days.
prey for hackers looking to expand their botnet networks. Unfortunately, botnets based on IoT devices are used to carry out the most destructive attacks.
IBM experts have been studying the dominican republic mobile database of Mozi, the largest IoT-based botnet, for four years now . According to the corporation, this botnet generated 90% of all IoT traffic last year. Experts are confident that the attackers who control Mozi can use it to initiate a number of attacks, including DDoS attacks.
DDoS attacks as a weapon of revenge
As a result of the “reformatting” of production according to Industry 4.0 standards, millions of people around the world will likely find themselves without work. Some of them will probably want to take revenge on their former employers.
DDoS attacks can be a possible tool for retaliation. Their "customers" do not necessarily need to know how to program or use hacker tools. The Darknet is full of offers for organizing DDoS attacks, and at very affordable prices. Damage from DDoS attacks already costs enterprises an average of $825,000 per attack. And this is despite the fact that the attacks that have taken place have had little effect on production systems and therefore have not led to failures and disasters at industrial facilities. But even non-catastrophic failures can, for example, disrupt the operation of supply chains, affecting many partners and clients of the enterprise. This means missed deadlines, breaches of contracts, penalties, reputational costs, etc.