Identifies over 145,000 exposed Industrial Control Systems (ICS) services worldwide ANN ARBOR, Mich. , Nov. 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Censys , who provides the leading Internet Intelligence Platform for Threat Hunting and Attack Surface Management (ASM), published the second half of its annual State of the Internet Report focusing on Internet-exposed Industrial Control Systems (ICS).
Following the launch of part one in August 2024 , this next phase of the report focuses on ICS protocols being leveraged by ICS-specific malware variants and human-machine interfaces (HMI), often used as a point of entry for many threat actors. In its research, Censys found over 145,000 exposed ICS services worldwide, with more than 48,000 located in the U.S.
alone. Censys investigated the exposure landscape to help the cybersecurity community better understand the true attack surface of ICS around the world and how to best protect it. Attacks using ICS protocols are less common and require specialized knowledge and understanding of such environments.
Censys recognizes that in order to protect real-world control systems, it is essential for security teams to understand and assess the exposure of these protocols and HMIs, which constitute an often overlooked yet vital component of the security ecosystem. With Censys' comprehensive internet visibility, it was able to identify: "Many of these protocols can be dated back to the 1970s but remain foundational to industrial processes without the s.