Terrorism consortium examines worldwide critical infrastructure attacks

A Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) research initiative examining worldwide critical infrastructure attacks determined America was the country most often targeted for cyberattacks regardless of motive.

The work showed the United States accounted for more than 19 percent of the incidents in the Significant Multi-Domain Incidents against Critical Infrastructure (SMICI) dataset.

The data was crafted through publicly available information and informed an ongoing e­ffort to better understand adversaries’ multi-domain behavior and motivations. Attacks had to have originated from cyberspace, targeted a critical infrastructure sector, and have been either a disruptive cyber-physical incident or a disruptive cyber-operational incident to be included in the dataset.

The SMICI breakdown revealed critical infrastructure sectors most commonly targeted in the cyber realm were the energy, transportation and critical manufacturing sectors while among state attack perpetrators, the numbers showed Russia accounted for 60 percent of attacks, North Korea accounted for 20 percent of attacks and Iran accounted for 12 percent of the attacks.

Cyberattacks were mainly executed within the realm of communications – 43 percent, followed by energy, transportation, and water sectors.