Cyber attacks on utility systems are on the rise

INTERNET BASED ATTACKS on gas, power and water utilities are on the rise, according to a report by insecurity software firm McAfee.

The study involved 200 IT executives of utility companies in 14 countries, with 80 per cent saying that their networks had been targeted by hackers over the last 12 months.

This is significantly higher than the figure a year earlier, when just over half of those asked reported hacking attempts, according to the BBC.

The vast majority of these online assaults took the form of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, similar to those carried out by the hacktivist group Anonymous, where a network can be taken down by overloading it with illegitimate traffic.

These attacks are less severe than other forms, such as the Stuxnet worm that infected Iranian nuclear industry systems, but the report found that 75 per cent of those surveyed expect serious repercussions as a result of cyber attacks over the next two years, including loss of services for 24 hours or more and even injury and death.

A rather worrying finding was that 40 per cent of those utility companies who searched for the Stuxnet virus on their systems found traces of it. The worm did not cause any obvious damage, but the fact that it has spread far and wide suggests a worrying trend for the future.

The survey found that Japan had the best government involvement in tackling cyber security concerns, while the United Kingdom was rated worst of the 14 countries surveyed.

China topped the polls as the most likely source of cyber attacks, while Russia and the United States took the second and third slots, respectively. µ