McAfee and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) today revealed the findings from a global report ‘In the Dark, Crucial Industries Confront Cyberattacks’ that reflects the cost and impact of cyber attacks on critical infrastructures. Critical infrastructure refers to computer systems of vital economic assets such as power grids, railways, nuclear energy plants, etc. that make strong targets for criminal threats, industrial espionage and politically motivated sabotage. The survey comprised 200 IT security executives from global critical electricity infrastructure enterprises in 14 countries, including India and the findings suggest that the rate of security adoption in enterprises is not commensurate with the rapid growth of threats.

Michael Sentonas, VP, Chief Technology Officer, Asia Pacific, McAfee commented, “Today’s rapidly proliferating threats require enterprises to adopt a comprehensive risk-based approach with stronger network controls."

“We found that the adoption of security measures in important civilian industries badly trailed the increase in threats over the last year,” said Stewart Baker, who led the study on behalf of CSIS.  Industry executives made modest progress over the past year in securing their networks, as the energy sector increased its adoption of security technologies by only a single percentage point (51 percent), and oil and gas industries increased only by three percentage points (48 percent).

The report is a follow up to a report released in 2010 called “In the Crossfire: Critical Infrastructure in the Age of Cyberwar,” that found that many of the world’s critical infrastructures lacked protection of their computer networks, and revealed the staggering cost and impact of cyberattacks on these networks.

To meet the challenges of the changing environment, McAfee advises these companies to adopt true critical infrastructure protection policies focused on improved authentication measures, better hygiene of network systems, increased oversight of access to industrial control systems, and effective partnerships with government.