When will the threat of a cyberattack be enough to spark real organizational resilience?

Ransomware attacks are on the rise, with increasing persistence and sophistication by threat actors who are adept in evasion techniques. On Friday 7 May, a ransomware attack was reported by the largest gasoline pipeline in the United States. And they paid nearly $5 million in bitcoin for the encryption key. While the pipeline is fully operational now, many US gas stations were still without fuel two weeks later. On 14 May, ransomware took down Ireland's health service's IT systems, which left most of the country's hospitals without computers for over a week. That means medics had limited or no access to patients' records, among other critical impacts. The most recent attack on global food producer JBS shut down operations around the world.

These attacks on industrial, utilities, and life sciences and healthcare companies continue to grow in frequency and impact, leading industry experts to warn that failing to address key cybersecurity concerns may have even more devastating consequences in future attacks, to both economies and to critical infrastructure.