You are here

Say It Isn’t So – Use of USBs in Industrial Environments

Say It Isn’t So – Use of USBs in Industrial Environments

Created: Thursday, December 6, 2018 - 12:20
Categories:
Cybersecurity, General Security and Resilience

Despite controls to prohibit usage of USBs within industrial environments, including a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) order in April, employees often find a way around such constraints. Inspired by technology in use across 50 of their customers, Honeywell released its Industrial USB Threat Report highlighting the poor USB hygiene problem. Honeywell’s Industrial Cybersecurity Team stated the data showed a more serious threat than it anticipated. The report highlighted that almost half of the customers using the technology detected and blocked at least one file with a security issue. In addition, 26 percent of detected threats were capable of significant disruption to the operations, including loss of view or loss of control. Somewhat surprising, among the threats detected on USBs were TRITON/TRISIS/Hatman, Mirai IoT botnet, WannaCry ransomware, and variants of Stuxnet; still organizations believe they are not a target. The report provides practical guidelines to help organizations continue to curb this threat. Tripwire.