More than 40% of the total number of global industrial control systems (ICS) computers saw some kind of malicious attack during the course of 2022.
This volume of cyberattacks against industrial systems was led by growth in Russia, which, as a region, saw a full 9 percentage-point increase in malicious activity in 2022, according to research into telemetry statistics this week from Kaspersky. Blocked malicious scripts were a particularly common threat within the firm's data for the period, which, along with phishing pages targeting ICS, saw an 11% rise over 2021, the analysis added.
However, Russia, which saw 39.2% of the ICS machines in Kaspersky's telemetry attacked, was not the top target overall. Rather, Ethiopia took the crown with 59% of its ICS footprint seeing malicious activity.
"In different regions of the world, the percentage of ICS computers on which malicious activity was prevented ranged from 40.1% in Africa and Central Asia, which led the ranking, to 14.2% and 14.3%, respectively, in Western and Northern Europe, which were the most secure regions," the Kaspersky report said.