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NETWORK / 22 / OCTOBER 2018 CYBER SECURIT Y C yber-attacks are increasingly hitting the global energy sector. In 2010, the Stuxnet virus targeted an Iranian nuclear facility and in 2016, In - dustroyer malware was used as part of an assault on Ukraine's national grid. UK energy companies are not immune to this threat. Last year, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) warned that as- saults on the energy sector are "highly likely". Meanwhile, in Why open source is key to securing the UK's energy sector Amid increasing risk of cyber-attacks, National Grid has been working with Lagoni to secure a fleet of 25 compressors and terminals. Kate O'Flaherty reports. April 2018, the UK and US made a joint statement blaming Russia for accessing routers in infor- mation-gathering attacks that could be laying the groundwork for devastating compromises on critical systems. This growing threat is lead - ing to regulatory pressure on critical national infrastructure organisations to ensure they are secure. From May 2018, fines of up to £17m will be imposed on those that fail to implement robust measures under the EU's network and information Whilst large capital assets are built with design lives of 40 years or more, OT so–ware and hardware becomes obsolete a–er 10 to 20 years or even less. Pressure on investment budgets means that provided systems are working, it is o–en difficult to justify replacement costs. A potentially unintentional impact of the increasing switch to using Windows as the operat - ing system for OT systems is that updates to Windows can drive a requirement to replace the entire control system infrastruc - systems (NIS) Directive. One of the greatest chal- lenges is the utility sector's supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. By and large, these were never meant to be connected to the internet (indeed many systems still in daily use pre-date the internet). Adding to this, pro- curement strategies and incre- mental upgrades have le– asset owners with a diverse range of operational technology (OT) equipment spanning multiple versions.