Many don’t realize that cyberattacks against Critical Infrastructure sectors, can cause more than an inconvenience of a temporary power outage.
Critical Infrastructures are a favorite of aggressive Nation State cyber threats. In addition to communications disruptions, power outages, and healthcare billing, these attacks can also seek to disrupt food distribution.
The result — empty shelves and people scrambling to acquire groceries.
There is currently a cyber-attack affecting the main grocery retailer in Scotland, resulting in empty shelves for many foodstuffs.
Nothing is as effective at changing people’s attitudes and motivating capitulation than the unavailability of food. It is an age-old strategy used for sieging forts, towns, and even nations.
Cybersecurity now protects many of the critical path systems for food production, transportation, and distribution.
It puts a different spin on the value of cybersecurity and how aggressive nations can wreak havoc on the citizens of their adversary. It is something to consider as we move into an age where cyber-attacks are being leveraged as a foreign policy tool.
Cybersecurity is key and we must remain diligent to protect our critical infrastructure sectors!