Critical infrastructure sees rising cybersecurity risk

Significance

The Belgian attack has been linked but not attributed to Chinese state-linked actors; the other two were apparently conducted by financially motivated, private ransomware hackers operating out of Russia. Each attack disrupted essential services.

Impacts

• The cybersecurity of ISPs and other critical inputs in the IT supply chain will draw increasing attention.
• National cybersecurity agencies and governments may diversify their IT vendors to reduce single points of failure.
• Ransomware attacks will continue rising even if some groups temporarily stop attacking high-profile targets.