July 11, 2017 By Shane Schick 2 min read

Critical U.S. infrastructure will be hit by a major cyberattack in the next two years, according to a survey of experts who attended the annual Black Hat security conference in the last two years.

Published just a few weeks before this year’s Black Hat event in Las Vegas, the survey, titled “Portrait of an Imminent Cyberthreat,” showed that only 26 percent of respondents believe U.S. infrastructure will be adequately protected by government and defense forces.

The nearly 600 security experts polled also reported concerns about the vulnerability of their own organizations. Two-thirds said they expect to be hit by a data breach in the next year, and 70 percent reported that staffing limitations will make it difficult to respond to a security incident. Meanwhile, 60 percent said their budgets aren’t keeping pace with the increasing sophistication of attacks.

US Infrastructure Vulnerable to Classic Scams

While it’s impossible to predict precisely how threat actors might strike U.S. infrastructure, 50 percent of those surveyed indicated that they were most concerned about social engineering and phishing schemes that dupe users into handing over access credentials. While the recent WannaCry and NotPetya attacks have made huge headlines recently, Black Hat attendees had already pegged ransomware as the fastest-rising threat.

Of course, there are plenty of established products and services to fend off cyberattacks, but the survey participants recognized the need for greater customization in their threat mitigation strategies. Sixty-one percent said corporations should fend off fraudsters with their own specialized online defenses. That’s probably because 45 percent reported that attacks are becoming more targeted at specific firms and pieces of U.S. infrastructure than ever before.

Conventional Wisdom Confirmed

Some of the report’s findings confirmed conventional wisdom about enterprise security. For example, 38 percent cited their own employees as a major weak spot in protecting information, while 39 percent suggested that insider threats may be more dangerous than third parties targeting U.S. infrastructure.

Perhaps the biggest worry, according to SDxCentral, is the gap between IT and management when it comes to the potential severity of cyberattacks. While compliance issues may remain top of mind for boards and CEOs, for instance, technology professionals want them to pay greater attention to data breaches.

You can be sure that topic, as well as other data points included in this survey, will generate at lot of buzz at the upcoming Black Hat conference.

More from

Cyberattack on American Water: A warning to critical infrastructure

3 min read - American Water, the largest publicly traded United States water and wastewater utility, recently experienced a cybersecurity incident that forced the company to disconnect key systems, including its customer billing platform. As the company’s investigation continues, there are growing concerns about the vulnerabilities that persist in the water sector, which has increasingly become a target for cyberattacks. The breach is a stark reminder of the critical infrastructure risks that have long plagued the industry. While the water utility has confirmed that…

What’s behind unchecked CVE proliferation, and what to do about it

4 min read - The volume of Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) has reached staggering levels, placing immense pressure on organizations' cyber defenses. According to SecurityScorecard, there were 29,000 vulnerabilities recorded in 2023, and by mid-2024, nearly 27,500 had already been identified.Meanwhile, Coalition's 2024 Cyber Threat Index forecasts that the total number of CVEs for 2024 will hit 34,888—a 25% increase compared to the previous year. This upward trend presents a significant challenge for organizations trying to manage vulnerabilities and mitigate potential exploits.What’s behind…

Quishing: A growing threat hiding in plain sight

4 min read - Our mobile devices go everywhere we go, and we can use them for almost anything. For businesses, the accessibility of mobile devices has also made it easier to create more interactive ways to introduce new products and services while improving user experiences across different industries. Quick-response (QR) codes are a good example of this in action and help mobile devices quickly navigate to web pages or install new software by simply scanning an image.However, legitimate organizations aren’t the only ones…

Topic updates

Get email updates and stay ahead of the latest threats to the security landscape, thought leadership and research.
Subscribe today