DBIR Report 2022 - Data Breaches in Energy & Utilities Industries

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Frequency		2,337 incidents, 338 with confirmed data disclosure
Top patterns		System Intrusion, Basic Web Application Attacks, and Social Engineering represent 88% of breaches
Threat actors		External (96%), Internal (4%) (breaches)
Actor motives		Financial (88%), Espionage (11%), Grudge (1%), Secondary (1%) (breaches)
Data compromised		Personal (58%), Credentials (40%), Other (36%), Internal (14%) (breaches)
Top IG1 protective controls		Security Awareness and Skills Training (CSC 14), Access Control Management (CSC 6), Secure Configuration of Enterprise Assets and Software (CSC 4)
What is the same?		This industry continues to be targeted by financially motivated actors as well as actors committing espionage.
Summary		The Mining and Utilities industry faces similar types of attacks as other industries such as those targeting credentials and leveraging Ransomware, but in addition has a high rate of social engineering attacks like Phishing.

Patterns	5-Year difference	3-Year difference
Basic Web Application Attacks	No change	No change
Social Engineering	No change	No change
System Intrusion	No change	No change

Pattern

Difference with peers

Social Engineering

Greater

System Intrusion

Less

Basic Web Application Attacks

Less

Mining, Quarrying, and Oil & Gas Extraction + Utilities (or MQOGEU as we like to say) simply rolls off the tongue. It is an interesting “combined” industry that has had a high number of engineers. This is perhaps fitting as it seems to be under barrage from the other form of “engineers” –the Social Engineers. This industry has had a higher rate of Social Engineering breaches than their peers.

And it shows, as more than 60% of all breaches are Phishing (Figure d930713), followed by stolen credentials (potentially gathered by Phishing) and Ransomware (potentially tangential to Phishing). Given the key importance of this industry to our everyday well-being, we certainly hope that those credentials aren’t the only thing keeping our utilities and mining operations safe, especially since that’s one of the most commonly breached data types.

Considering the high prevalence of Phishing and credential attacks, it’s not too surprising to have Email servers as this industry’s most commonly breached asset, followed by Web applications and Desktops. Even though the infrastructure that runs these complex systems isn’t traditional IT infrastructure, the company can still be exposed to the very same threats as any other organization.