RSA CONFERENCE 2018 - San Francisco - Operational outages and shutdowns and physical injury to employees due to cyberattacks are among the main worries of more than 95% energy and oil & gas firms, a new survey shows.

Some 70% worry that cyberattacks could yield catastrophic results, such as explosions, according to the Dimensional Research study conducted on behalf of Tripwire. The report surveyed 151 IT and technology (OT) security professionals at energy and oil and gas companies. Some 65% say their organizations properly invest in ICS security, while 56% of those without sufficient security budgets say it would take a major cyberattack to pressure thier firm to properly invest in security. 

Ransomware has been slightly more of an incentive for energy firms to increase their ICS security (45%), followed closely by Triton/Trisis and Industroyer/Crashoverride (44%). Stuxnet inspired 11% to up their security budgets.

Some 35% of the firms employ multiple layers of security for their ICS systems, while 34% concentrate on securing their networks and 14%, their ICS devices.

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