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The frequency of attempted cyberattacks has increased by five to six times since Russia began amassing troops on the border ahead of its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, one prominent water company has told Utility Week.
Over the past few months, the company saw an increase in activity against its firewalls, with attacks coming from inside Russia.
With assets including pumps and generators controlled by computers, there could be a risk to public supplies if the security systems were compromised.
The company said if the attacks were serious threats, they would not expect to see them coming from Russian IP (internet protocol) addresses and suggested it may be political posturing to have activity traceable to Russia instead of using decoy IP addresses.
However, they added it is often not possible to be certain where cyber attacks are launched from.
The company explained there is no need to take action because as a critical infrastructure provider its cybersecurity is already more than capable of protecting its systems against such attacks.
“If we were in a situation that we needed to add more controls then we weren’t doing the right things in the first place,” the company explained.
“We can look at what’s going on and try to paint a picture but we may never know,” they said. “If there are any security gaps, we would fill them and remain vigilant.”
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) updated its guidance this week calling on all UK organisations to bolster online defences during a time of heightened threat from cyber-attacks.
It said despite there being no specific threats to UK organisations in relation to events in and around Ukraine, there has been a historical pattern of cyber attacks on Ukraine with international consequences.
In 2015, cyber warfare became a tenet of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine via a sophisticated attack on the Ukrainian power grid, which disrupted electricity supplies.
Russia was also suspected of being behind security breaches of UK energy companies on the day of the 2017 general election. The attack was believed to have targeted engineers in power plants and distribution networks, but there was no significant disruption.
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