The Biggest Cybersecurity Threats That More People Should Be Talking About: Industrial Hacking And Hijacking

The Biggest Cybersecurity Threats That More People Should Be Talking About: Industrial Hacking And Hijacking

Cybercriminals aren't just trying to steal companies' data. They're also trying to disrupt their operations. The year was 2017. The United States had a new president. The nation was captivated by the first total solar eclipse to cross the U. S. since 1918. And a trio of deadly hurricanes pummeled the Gulf Coast and Caribbean, one after another. In business, however, the year's biggest story might have been the Equifax data breach, wherein hackers penetrated the IT systems of the American credit bureau in order to steal the personal information “” including credit card, driver's license, passport and Social Security numbers “” of more than 146 million consumers. In an interview with The New York Times, World Privacy Forum Executive Director Pamela Dixon called this cyberattack "about as bad as it gets." Unfortunately, she was wrong. It can get worse. A lot worse. That's because cyberthreats don't just impact information. They also can impact infrastructure. This became terrifyingly apparent recently in the small city of Oldsmar, Florida, where just this month a hacker breached the software at a water treatment plant in an attempt to poison the local water supply. Although the software hack succeeded, an employee intervened before the