Energy industry must act on growing threat of cyber-attacks

Traditionally, cyber criminals have followed the money, breaching companies’ IT environments to steal data for financial gain. That was the exact intention of hacking group DarkSide when it launched a ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline Company in April last year.   Energy companies have been tackling IT security challenges such as the Colonial attack for several decades. But securing operational technology (OT) – the computing and communications systems used to manage, monitor and control industrial operations – is a more recent and increasingly urgent issue.   As OT becomes more networked and connected to IT systems, attackers can more easily access control systems opera