Cyber attacks costing companies and governments billions of dollars

BANGALORE, INDIA: More than nine in ten (92 percent) of surveyed adults in India say they are fearful that cyber hackers are carrying out attacks on major industries and sectors of the economy, according to the results of a global study by Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS). Of the 10 countries surveyed, India had the highest percentage of respondents who said they were very fearful or somewhat fearful of cyber attacks.

More than one third of Indian respondents (34 percent) indicated they do not believe that it is possible to stop all the cyber attacks. Six in ten (61 percent) report they don’t have faith in India’s ability to keep up with cyber attacks because they feel that government and organizations are not taking these threats seriously enough – the highest among countries surveyed. The next two highest were China (48 percent) and Mexico (47 percent).

Among other findings of the survey:

• Behind India’s 92 percent, Japan (89 percent) is the second most worried about cyber attacks, whereas Russian adults (53 percent) express the lowest level of overall concern.
• Four in ten (40 percent) survey respondents globally are not sure about how well their government or private industrial sectors are able to defend against cyber hackers, including 10 percent who are not at all confident.
• When asked about the vulnerability of nine critical industry sectors (which have varying degrees of computer and internet security systems in place to guard against cyber hackers), majorities of respondents globally see all sectors as being vulnerable to cyber attacks. Industrial sectors likely to be perceived as vulnerable to such attacks include oil and gas production (64 percent), medical/health care/pharmaceuticals (64 percent), power grid (63 percent), chemicals (61 percent) and aerospace/defense (59 percent).
• Among those who are relatively unconcerned about cyber hackers (“not very fearful” or “not at all fearful”), no single factor stands out as a primary justification. Globally, many (31 percent) say that this is because they believe the risk of something major actually happening is really quite low, particularly in Australia (52 percent).  Other reasons for lower levels of concern include:

o   Cyber hackers would have already done something big if they actually had these capabilities (25 percent),

o   Computer and Internet security have been able to counter or block almost all of the threats (24 percent); or,

o   Governments and its intelligence and armed forces will not let this happen (24 percent).

Michael Chertoff, co-founder and executive chairman of the Chertoff Group, and former head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said, “This threat is real and industries need a proactive and coordinated approach to protect their assets as well as their intellectual property. We have seen a number of attacks to critical industries in areas like the Middle East and the U.S. and these have had major impacts on their operations.”

The British government estimates that cyber security breaches at British energy companies alone cost those companies about 400 million pounds ($664 million) every year. In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security said that more than 40 percent of industrial cyber attacks targeted the energy industry in 2012, the last full year reported.

Jeff Zindel, leader of HPS’ Industrial Cyber Security business, said, “The impacts of these attacks, as well as others that have not been publicly reported, have cost companies and governments billions of dollars through operational issues and loss of intellectual property.”

In December 2014, HPS will establish the Honeywell Industrial Cyber Security Lab near Atlanta, Georgia. The lab will expand the company’s research capabilities and will feature a model of a complete process control network which Honeywell cyber security experts will leverage to develop, test and certify industrial cyber security solutions. This lab will help accelerate proprietary research and development of new cyber technologies and solutions to help defend industrial facilities, operations and people.