Attacks targeting operational technology (OT) infrastructure increased by over 2000 percent in 2019 compared to the previous year, and the piece of malware most commonly seen in these attacks was the Mirai variant named Echobot, IBM revealed on Tuesday.
IBM’s 2020 X-Force Threat Intelligence Index summarizes the most prominent threats observed by the company’s researchers last year, including OT threats.
Based on data derived from network event logs, IBM saw an increase of over 2000 percent in attacks targeting industrial control systems (ICS) and other OT assets compared to 2018.
“In fact, the number of events targeting OT assets in 2019 was greater than the activity volume observed in the past three years,” the company said in its report. According to IBM, most of the OT attacks involved exploitation of known vulnerabilities and password-spraying attempts.
