Critical Infrastructure

Using OSINT To Defend Against Critical Infrastructure Attacks

Critical infrastructure has always been subject to risks associated with natural disasters and man-made threats. Such incidents have and can harm, incapacitate, or even destroy operations, services, and facilities. In addition, in today’s world, critical infrastructure faces fast-growing cyber risks. As more and more information and communications technologies are integrated with critical infrastructure operations, they become “better” targets for cyber threats. In our globalized world, such threat actors can be local, national, transnational, private, or even state-sponsored. To prevent, mitigate, and control attacks in order to protect their assets and operations, critical infrastructure operators must leverage robust IT and security systems as well as cyber intelligence tools. Rather than focusing on one type of threat or hazard at a time, such as cyber threats or terrorism, organizations must identify all threats and hazards that pose the greatest risks to critical infrastructure and allow for more effective and efficient planning and resource allocation.

Workflow

The Challenge
Protecting Energy, Utilities, And Industrial Organizations

In recent years, energy, utilities, and industrial organizations have become a popular target for private threat actors, hacktivists, and state-sponsored groups. Not for no reason – as these organizations work to further digitize their operations for greater efficiency gains, the process of digitization exposes them to a variety of cyberattacks. Threat actors have targeted oil and gas pipeline operators, water treatment facilities, chemical plants, nuclear energy plants, harbors, hospitals, and more. While the reasons may seem manifold and complex, monetization and/or national security are central to the story. Monetization may come in the form of the sale of compromised data, competitive/ economic intelligence, intellectual property, identity theft, bank fraud, unauthorized access, and others. National security concerns may lead state-sponsored actors to go after cyber espionage, disruption of on-the-ground operations, creation of unsafe conditions and physical damage, and complete shutdowns. Today, digitization knows no bounds. More and more connected devices are incorporated into the daily operations of critical infrastructures. As the line between the virtual and the physical continues to blur, and as cyberattacks have the potential to cause real physical damage to humans, operators must do more to prevent and mitigate such attacks.

The Solution

Critical infrastructures are and will remain targets of threat actors, whether they are private individuals or state-sponsored groups with larger resources. To get optimal protection against cyberthreats aimed at their operations, critical infrastructure operators must implement the right in-house cybersecurity measures that fit their organizations. Using an automated web intelligence platform is a must to detect and mitigate imminent threats aimed at the critical infrastructure in record time for follow-up.

Cobwebs Web Intelligence Tools

Whether they are private individuals motivated by money, self-declared hacktivists motivated by ideology, or state actors motivated by national interest, these actors are online – mostly on criminal forums in the underground corners of the deep and dark web. This means that they, too, can be traced and tracked. Cobwebs’ AI-powered web intelligence platform continuously scans open, deep, and dark web to detect cyber threats that are aimed at your energy, utility, industrial or critical infrastructure. Round the clock, the platform collects and analyzes massive amounts of data and interactions, in order to provide real-time insights for actionable follow-up.

Benefits

Safe And Anonymous Investigations

With Cobwebs, operators benefit from crucial intelligence without exposing themselves to threat actors.

Detecting New Attack Kits and Vectors

Identify new attack kits and vectors in the planning stage to prevent attacks that target your industrial controls.

Discovering Data Leakage & Real-Time Targeted Alerts

Scanning open, deep, and dark web to detect leaked data, confidential information, or exposed intellectual proprietary information and actionable alerts tailored to your needs. These alerts are based on simultaneously extracted, relevant data from all web layers.

Targeted Threat Identification & Protection of Assets

Open-source intelligence (OSINT) tailored to your critical infrastructure to identify those threats that directly target your operations and Cobwebs simultaneously monitors different web layers to identify threats against the critical infrastructure’s brand, reputation, assets, or employees.

Gain Real-Time Situational Awareness

Cobwebs’ solutions are recognized globally for innovation, compliance, and award-winning technologies.

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