Late last week, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security shared a warning stating that hacktivists are targeting critical infrastructure through internet-exposed industrial control systems (ICS).
In recent weeks, the Cyber Centre and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have received multiple reports of incidents involving internet-accessible ICS. One incident affected a water facility, tampering with water pressure values and resulting in degraded service for its community. Another involved a Canadian oil and gas company, where an Automated Tank Gauge (ATG) was manipulated, triggering false alarms. A third one involved a grain drying silo on a Canadian farm, where temperature and humidity levels were manipulated, resulting in potentially unsafe conditions if not caught on time.
While individual organizations may not be direct targets of adversaries, they may become victims of opportunity as hacktivists are increasingly exploiting internet-accessible ICS devices to gain media attention, discredit organizations, and undermine Canada’s reputation.
Exposed ICS components, including Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), Remote Terminal Units (RTUs), Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS), Building Management Systems (BMS), and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices, pose significant risks to organizations, their clients, and the broader Canadian public.
Grayson Milbourne, Security Intelligence Director, OpenText Cybersecurity had this to say:
“The Cyber Centre’s alert underscores a cross-border reality: both Canadian and U.S. critical infrastructure operators are connecting legacy industrial control systems to the internet without the right access safeguards. These systems weren’t designed with modern authentication in mind, and that’s exactly where attackers are getting in.
Cybersecurity for critical infrastructure has to start with identity. When every user, device, and connection is verified, organizations can limit who touches sensitive systems and quickly spot when something’s wrong. That means implementing strong identity and access management, continuous monitoring, and strict network segmentation to close the gaps hacktivists exploit.”
This warning illustrates the fact that critical infrastructure needs to move to a place where it isn’t a target for threat actors. Right now critical infrastructure is low hanging fruit for threat actors. And that isn’t a good place to be as it can have catastrophic results for all of us.
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This entry was posted on November 6, 2025 at 2:39 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Warning from Canadian Centre for Cyber Security says that critical infrastructure is vulnerable
Late last week, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security shared a warning stating that hacktivists are targeting critical infrastructure through internet-exposed industrial control systems (ICS).
In recent weeks, the Cyber Centre and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have received multiple reports of incidents involving internet-accessible ICS. One incident affected a water facility, tampering with water pressure values and resulting in degraded service for its community. Another involved a Canadian oil and gas company, where an Automated Tank Gauge (ATG) was manipulated, triggering false alarms. A third one involved a grain drying silo on a Canadian farm, where temperature and humidity levels were manipulated, resulting in potentially unsafe conditions if not caught on time.
While individual organizations may not be direct targets of adversaries, they may become victims of opportunity as hacktivists are increasingly exploiting internet-accessible ICS devices to gain media attention, discredit organizations, and undermine Canada’s reputation.
Exposed ICS components, including Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), Remote Terminal Units (RTUs), Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS), Building Management Systems (BMS), and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices, pose significant risks to organizations, their clients, and the broader Canadian public.
Grayson Milbourne, Security Intelligence Director, OpenText Cybersecurity had this to say:
“The Cyber Centre’s alert underscores a cross-border reality: both Canadian and U.S. critical infrastructure operators are connecting legacy industrial control systems to the internet without the right access safeguards. These systems weren’t designed with modern authentication in mind, and that’s exactly where attackers are getting in.
Cybersecurity for critical infrastructure has to start with identity. When every user, device, and connection is verified, organizations can limit who touches sensitive systems and quickly spot when something’s wrong. That means implementing strong identity and access management, continuous monitoring, and strict network segmentation to close the gaps hacktivists exploit.”
This warning illustrates the fact that critical infrastructure needs to move to a place where it isn’t a target for threat actors. Right now critical infrastructure is low hanging fruit for threat actors. And that isn’t a good place to be as it can have catastrophic results for all of us.
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This entry was posted on November 6, 2025 at 2:39 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.