The Security of Things is set to become a key feature in the fight against cybercriminals, according to a new report by the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA).
Its paper, titled The Cost of Incidents Affecting Critical Information Infrastructures (CIIs), explained that as more organizations embrace new technologies and increasingly turn to the Internet of Things, security will have to evolve to confront various cyberthreats.
This is because sophisticated and complex cyberattacks against technology-enhanced CIIs have the potential to cause a devastating impact on the “security, economy and health of a society as a whole”.
Investing in the Security of Things will help ensure that any fallout from such cyberattacks will be relatively contained, so that ordinary people can get on with their lives as normally as possible.
“The more businesses benefit from the advantages of information technology, by entering into the era of the also called cyber-physical systems, Internet of Things and Internet of Services (Industry 4.0), cyber-incidents affecting those infrastructures have increased more than ever,” the authors stated.
This paper by ENISA, which is principally focused on looking at the economic impact of attacks against CIIs, stated that finance, ICT and energy industries “appear to have the highest incident costs”.
When it comes to the type of attacks that are directed towards finance and ICT industries, two are commonplace.
This includes distributed denial of service attacks, and the threat posed by malicious insiders (note, insider threats vary).
Last year, ENISA announced that in 2016 it would be prioritizing the development of good practices in relation to “emerging smart critical infrastructures”.
According to its Work Programme, smart cities, smart grids and intelligent transport systems, which are increasingly important, need to be appropriately protected.
