ICS Security: 145,000 Systems Exposed to Web, Many Industrial Firms Hit by Attacks

Censys and Kaspersky publish ICS security reports looking into exposure to attacks and actual attacks suffered by industrial organizations.

Worldwide there are more than 145,000 internet-exposed industrial control systems (ICS), according to internet intelligence platform provider Censys.

The company’s latest ‘State of the Internet’ report also reveals that the devices are spread out across 175 countries, with 38% of them located in North America, 35% in Europe and 22% in Asia.

In the United States, there are 48,000 exposed systems. Censys previously reported seeing 40,000 internet-exposed ICS systems in the United States.

In comparison, a Shodan search currently shows roughly 110,000 worldwide ICS systems directly accessible from the web.

Censys’ latest report shows that the exposed ICS devices are accessible on common protocols, such as Modbus, Fox, BACnet, WDBRPC (Wind River), EIP, S7 (Siemens), and IEC 60870-5-104.

However, the company noticed some regional specifics. For ...