Several European oil and transport companies have fallen victim to a cyberattack, leaving dozens of terminals across Europe with IT systems severely disrupted. Oiltanking in Germany, SEA-Invest in Belgium and Evos in the Netherlands, were targeted.
Orange Cyberdefense’s UK Product Manager, Dominic Trott, said: “Critical national infrastructure (CNI) is becoming an increasingly popular target for malicious actors due to the devastating impacts downtime and delays in this sector can have. You only have to look back at last year’s fuel crisis or the attack on US supplier Colonial Pipeline to see this in action. In this attack, the impacts have already spread far further than the three countries where these businesses are based, with the connected nature of the global supply chains resulting in ports in Africa and across Europe more widely also being affected.
“With concerns about rising energy prices already adding strain to the sector, thwarting cyberattacks targeting key infrastructure has never been more critical and the severe consequences of failing to do so are profound. Organisations responsible for the security of our CNI need to ensure that a layered approach to cybersecurity is in place, adopting a defence-in-depth approach that harnesses end-to-end security to address the organisation’s challenges (not least ensuring operational resilience in the face of a cyber-onslaught). Importantly, while defence-in-depth harnesses the power of security technology across all solution areas, it must also be supplemented by investment in both people and process to enable round-the-clock threat protection, detection and response.”
