It’s been just over a year since the American public got a taste of what a cyberattack could do to their way of life. A ransomware sortie on Colonial Pipeline forced its owners to shut down operations and leave half the country’s East Coast in a lurch for refined oil. Since that time, efforts have aimed at making the nation’s critical infrastructure more resilient and to counter the scourge of ransomware. The question is whether enough is being done fast enough.
“The attack on Colonial Pipeline was an eye-opener—not so much because of the risks about ransomware, but because of the threat landscape moving dangerously close to the critical infrastructure that underpins societies,” says Gartner Vice President, Analyst Katell Thielemann . “On that front, it was a wake-up call that spurred all kinds of activities, from cybersecurity sprints in the electric utility sector led by the Department of Energy to security directives from the TSA to pipeline, rail, and airport operators, to a new law establishing upcoming mandates for incident reporting.”