Cyberattacks on US Energy Companies

Cyberattacks have become as commonplace as the Internet itself gets bigger and so many people and infrastructure require the cyber world. Each year, industry reports, media outlets, and academic articles highlight this increased prevalence, spanning both the amount and variety of attacks and cybercrimes. In this report, we seek to further advance discussions on cyberattacks in energy companies, what problem it causes, and possible solutions that can mitigate these issues. In particular, two of the cyberattacks that caused irruptions on the energy companies are an American oil pipeline system called Colonial Pipeline was affected by an immense ransomware attack and the FDI attack on electric grids. To consider the applicability of our findings, we investigate its infrastructural downfall effects, and possible solutions such as Moving target defense, iECPS for reliable smart grids, Ransomware detection by mining API call usage, and Zero Watermarking Algorithm for Software Protection which could have either prevented it or reduced the effects of the attack. In the end, we propose our recommendation for the best possible solution that can be used to prevent these types of Cyberattacks.

You may read our research report here.