Banks and electric utilities infiltrated often says McAfee report

A former top homeland security official disclosed a recent report made on companies, such as electric utilities, banks and oil refineries, stating that major public infrastructures are often victims of cyber attacks.

The report, commissioned by anti-virus expert McAfee, had revealed that 20 per cent of the 601 surveyed companies and government institutions said that they had been a victim of cyber attacks within the past couple of years. The attacks were often paired with extortion demands, the report added, although it did not state whether the companies gave-in to the demands or what actions they had used to resolve the problem.

Former senior official for the Department of Homeland Security, Stewart Baker, led the team which surveyed company executives. One hundred of the surveyed executives were Americans, while the rest came from 13 countries – including the UK, Russia and China. The research was funded by McAfee, while Baker and his group from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies made the survey and the report.

Of all the executives that were surveyed, 54 per cent had said that their company had been the target of attacks, while two-thirds confessed that the infiltration caused harm to their operations.

Last year, there was a report published on The Wall Street Journal, a prominent US newspaper, which stated that Chinese and Russian cyber spies had attacked computer systems that are responsible for controlling the US power grids. The accusation of the US government however was denied by both the Chinese and the Russian governments.