In six months the number of vulnerabilities found in ICS jumped by 41%

 In attacks on industrial businesses, 90% of vulnerabilities are fairly straightforward to exploit.


There are continually increasing numbers of attacks by ransomware on industrial systems and attacks on important infrastructure such as the Colonial Pipeline highlight the effect.


The frequency of vulnerability reports in ICS has grown like a snowball according to a new report from Team82 information security firm Claroty. Most of them (90%) may be exploited very simply - no particular conditions are necessary to perform an attack and they are easy to repeat. Many are hazardous or even fatal. 74% do not need high privileges and 66% can do so without user participation.


In the first half of 2021, the report showed 637 vulnerabilities, an increase of 41% over the second half of 2020. The number of vulnerabilities found between 2019 and 2020 increased by 25 per cent for comparison.


Different levels of Purdue University 5-tier model (PRM) affect disclosed vulnerabilities, including operations management (23.55%), sending (14.76%) and fundamental control systems (15,23%). With which industrial equipment monitoring is done out (sensors, pumps, transmission, etc.).


There are developing vulnerabilities that allow remote code execution. Therefore, 61% of the vulnerabilities found can be remotely exploited, putting IoT and IIoT devices at risk.


The highest dangerous or critical level is 71 percent of detected vulnerabilities. Total denial of service and access can be achieved at 65 percent. For 26%, the repair is unavailable or only available for partial precautions, which would make issues worse.


The use of sensitive systems, for example power stations, oil and gas firms, food manufacturers, water suppliers, automakers, pharmaceutical companies and many more is under threat in all manufacturing plants (inkluding essential infrastructure).


In Siemens products, Schneider Electric, Rockwell Automation, WAGO and Advantech have the most prevalent weaknesses. The number of vulnerabilities and assaults will expand as businesses upgrade and shift to the cloud.

0 Comments