This is a translation of the original article in Portuguese. Read the original (Português).
A scanning tool sold for a small price has been used in attacks on water systems in the United States and on refrigeration equipment in several countries, including Italy. The information comes from the Italian newspaper il Giornale.
According to the report, the program can be copied and is used by many different groups. That makes it harder to identify a single state sponsor behind the offensives. When the tool is for sale and anyone can use it, the trail that would lead to a government gets lost among many possible perpetrators.
The same newspaper notes that digital fragility also comes from another direction: dependence on a few companies. The disruption of Microsoft 365 services affected hospitals, airlines and the Euronext stock exchange in 74 countries.
According to the credit rating agency Morningstar DBRS, insured losses could reach somewhere between US$300 million and US$500 million. Market data cited by il Giornale indicates that Amazon, Microsoft and Google account for 61% of the world’s cloud infrastructure.
The two cases show risks of a different nature. In one, basic services such as water supply and food preservation can be targeted with tools available to any group. In the other, the failure of a single company is enough to halt hospitals, flights and financial markets at the same time.
What changes for the reader is everyday exposure. Tap water, refrigerated food, hospital care and airline tickets depend on connected systems, and there is not always an alternative when one of them fails or is attacked.
The risk is not limited to Europe and the United States. Brazil uses the same cloud services as the large companies and is therefore subject to similar problems if one of these providers suffers an outage.
When the author of an attack is not an identifiable state, the possible response also changes. Without a clear culprit, it becomes harder to assign blame, demand accountability publicly and define how to react, which shifts the weight toward prevention and toward each operator’s ability to keep its service running.
Reporting from il Giornale (p. 5, kit de software barato usado em ataques a sistemas industriais), il Giornale (p. 7, dependência de grandes empresas de nuvem expõe fragilidade digital).
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