Critical infrastructure organisations face heightened cyber-risks as the systems supporting essential services become increasingly digital and interconnected, according to new research from Thales.

Targets

Covering organisations across energy, utilities, telecommunications and transportation, Thales found IoT to be the most commonly cited attack target, identified by 46% of respondents.

In operational and control-system environments, protecting the integrity and availability of connected technology can be critical to maintaining safe and reliable services.

Cloud storage (44%) and cloud infrastructure (40%) were the next most commonly cited targets.

In these IT environments, the emphasis shifts towards protecting the confidentiality of sensitive data.

“Where the country needs it most”

Mike Sewart, Chief Technology Officer at Thales in the UK said: “Cyber-resilience is now national resilience. The systems that keep the country powered, connected and moving are becoming increasingly digital and interconnected.

“That creates huge opportunities to improve how essential services operate, but it also creates more potential routes for disruption.

“The challenge is one of pace as much as protection.

“Threats are evolving rapidly, particularly as AI makes it easier to automate and adapt attacks.”

Sewart continued: “We therefore need to think beyond simply stopping an attack and view it more fundamentally: can our essential services keep operating when something goes wrong?

“Our UK technology strategy is focused on turning technology ambition into usable capability where the country needs it most.

“For critical infrastructure, that means understanding how disruption could spread across interconnected systems, testing our response before a crisis happens, and designing infrastructure that can adapt as the threat changes,” he concluded.

Exploiting weaknesses

Although the security priorities differ across IT and control-system environments, attackers can exploit some of the same weaknesses across both.

Two-thirds (66%) of critical infrastructure organisations report an increase in credential theft and misappropriated secrets, which can allow attackers to gain access using apparently legitimate credentials.

AI is adding further pressure, with 68% of respondents identifying the speed of change within AI ecosystems as their leading AI-related security risk.

As automation gives attackers greater ability to scale and adapt their activity, organisations must be able to respond at a similar pace while maintaining the continuity of essential services.

Strengthening resilience

Thales in the UK works with critical infrastructure organisations on strengthening the resilience of operational and industrial systems, including through its Cyber Resilience Lab in Ebbw Vale.

There, control-system environments can be subjected to simulated cyber-attacks without putting live infrastructure at risk, helping organisations test how their technology and people respond to disruption before it happens in the real world.