Stewart Baker Leads McAfee/CSIS Cybersecurity Study

April 29, 2011

Stewart Baker, partner in Steptoe’s Washington office, led a study about the cost and impact of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure such as power grids, oil, gas and water. The report, commissioned by McAfee and produced by The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), revealed the findings based on a survey of 200 IT security executives from critical electricity infrastructure enterprises in 14 countries.

"We found that the adoption of security measures in important civilian industries badly trailed the increase in threats over the last year," said Mr. Baker.

The report is a follow-up to a report released in 2010 called “In the Crossfire: Critical Infrastructure in the Age of Cyberwar,” that found that many of the world’s critical infrastructures lacked protection of their computer networks, and revealed the staggering cost and impact of cyberattacks on these networks. The new study reveals that while the threat level to these infrastructures has accelerated, the response level has not, even after the majority of respondents frequently found malware designed to sabotage their systems (nearly 70 percent), and nearly half of respondents in the electric industry sector reported that they found Stuxnet on their systems. This threat to infrastructures also includes electrical smart grids, which are growing in adoption and expected to have exceeded $45 billion in global spending in 2015.

Please click here to read the full report, titled “In the Dark: Crucial Industries Confront Cyberattacks.”

The report received significant media coverage and Mr. Baker was quoted extensively. Media reports include: