GoKawiilIn May 2021, the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack showed how quickly a compromised account can become a national issue. The attackers reportedly achieved initial access through an inactive VPN account without multi-factor authentication (MFA), hit business systems including billing infrastructure, and triggered a shutdown that disrupted fuel supply across the U.S. East Coast.
Five years later, the lessons learned from Colonial Pipeline have more relevance than ever. Critical infrastructure is attractive because disruption creates pressure far beyond the breached organization.
Today, that pressure is rising as state-backed actors look for persistence inside critical infrastructure networks, not just to steal data, but to hold access that could be used in a crisis.
The initial attack path is familiar, with threat actors exploiting stolen credentials, unmanaged devices, compromised laptops, remote access tools and weak access controls. Zero trust offers a security model that is quickly becoming an operational necessity for organizations that deliver essential services.
The identity threat facing critical infrastructure
Advancements in technology mean that systems are increasingly interconnected. Reflecting this change and new challenge, CISA recently published guidance in the paper Adapting Zero Trust Principles to Operational Technology.
While the paper focuses on operational technology (OT) environments, its central warning applies across critical infrastructure: implicit trust creates unacceptable risk.
OT deserves careful, tailored treatment. Safety, uptime, legacy systems and physical processes make it trickier to apply typical IT security models in control environments. CISA’s guidance reflects that reality, with emphasis on asset visibility, identity and access management, segmentation, monitoring and supply chain risk.
But OT is not the only place where critical infrastructure is exposed. Essential services also depend on IT systems, cloud platforms, and SaaS applications. As the Colonial Pipeline attack demonstrated, compromising business-critical systems can cause just as much damage as breaching OT.
How attackers break in and stay hidden
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