Mounting digitization and subpar security practices have prompted Moody's Rating to give the "very high" cyber risk designation to the telecommunications, airline, and power generation utility sectors, which have collectively incurred $7.1 trillion of debt, CyberScoop reports.
Cybersecurity defenses have been particularly weak in the telecommunications industry, compared with other critical infrastructure sectors, as shown by the compromise of AT&T, Lumen Technologies, and Verizon by Chinese state-backed threat operation Salt Typhoon, a separate hack of AT&T that impacted almost all its customers' records, and data breaches against T-Mobile that resulted in a $31.5 million settlement, according to Moody's analysts. On the other hand, airlines had their risk profile raised following the CrowdStrike outage that stemmed from a faulty software update, indicating the threat posed by extensive software dependence. Additional findings showed automotive manufacturers, education organizations, manufacturing entities, energy providers, and ports to have had their risk profiles increased to "high".
