US liquid natural gas exporters have been facing cyberattacks since late February according to cybersecurity firm Resecurity, starting two weeks before Russia’s incursion into Ukraine.
Resecurity’’s security chief, Gene Yoo, told Bloomberg that hackers either directly compromised or paid for access to computers of current and former employees of companies such as Cheniere Energy, Chevron and Kinder Morgan.
“We’re in a high-risk environment right now from a cyber standpoint, and we’re in an industry that is a high profile, high-value target for bad actors,” noted Mike Wirth, CEO of Chevron, earlier in the month at an investor conference. “So that’s the thing in the short term that I probably would say, in my view is the risk I worry about the most.”
According to Resecurity one of the hackers had connections to attacks on European companies by a group called Strontium, which some analysts have associated with Russian intelligence.
“While there are no specific or credible cyber threats to the U.S. homeland at this time, Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine, which has involved cyber-attacks on Ukrainian government and critical infrastructure organizations, may impact organizations both within and beyond the region,” wrote the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of the United States Government on its website as part of its Shields Up program on Tuesday.
