Firms not fully alert to dangers of cyber crime
Ben Dickinson, cyber security consultant for technology giant ABB, said the pace of change in the way people work and increasingly sophisticated methods of hacking were a recipe for potential trouble.
While some companies are on top of the need to protect their operations and employees, others are naive to the dangers or unwilling to spend money on cyber security, he added.
Mr Dickinson, who previously worked at the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ, said: “As firms’ networks and new systems become connected, they also become more vulnerable and the whole threat landscape changes. You have to start looking at cyber security from a different perspective and take it more seriously.”
As an example of the worst type of threat facing the North Sea oil and gas industry, including economically “critical” infrastructure assets requiring the highest standards of security, Mr Dickinson highlighted a recent cyber attack in the Middle East.
A petrochemical company’s operations were targeted by cyber criminals in an attempt to trigger an explosion, marking a dangerous escalation in global cyber warfare. The hackers were only foiled when their own corrupt computer code forced a system shutdown, meaning disaster was avoided.