CISA and FBI Warn OT Operators About Third-Party Hacking
September 25, 2026 – Published on BankInfoSecurity
U.S. authorities are warning companies that use operational technology to be cautious when granting online access to third-party integrators or consultants. They say foreign hackers are actively using such connections as a vector for cyberattacks.
“Using third-party ICS integrators in critical infrastructure may inadvertently introduce security issues,” states a Wednesday advisory from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI. “Critical infrastructure owners and operators that rely on third-party integrators for system design face supply chain risks,” if they do not enforce clear security requirements, the advisory adds.
The threat is not theoretical. The advisory reports that between March 2025 and April 2025, “malicious foreign cyber actors gained access to the network of a U.S. industrial automation solutions company that offered services – such as system integration [and] engineering consulting,” for clients including power utilities and transportation systems. The company specialized in a kind of OT known as supervisory control and data acquisition systems. SCADA systems enable the remote operation and monitoring of industrial machinery.
The data the hackers were trying to steal was, in effect, a road map for cyberattacks against the downstream clients, said Patrick Gillespie, an industrial systems security specialist who is the OT practice director for risk consultant GuidePoint Security.
Typically integrators plan a system out end-to-end, Gillespie said, and their files will contain three types of diagrams of their clients’ sites: “architectural, electrical and network.”
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