Cyber Attacks hit Close too home

The cyberattack on Suncor Energy Inc. last week might be the most significant breach in the Canadian oil and gas sector to date, according to industry experts. This Calgary-based oil company, which has remained somewhat secretive about the attack’s specifics or its impact on its operations, confirmed in a news release last Sunday that it had encountered a “cybersecurity incident.”
Speculation about the attack became rampant when social media users took to Twitter over the weekend, raising complaints about issues with credit and debit card usage at Petro-Canada gas stations – a subsidiary of Suncor – across various Canadian cities. There were also reports of difficulties in accessing car wash services.
On Saturday, Petro-Canada officially announced that its Petro-Points app and website were temporarily offline. By Monday afternoon, several Petro-Canada sites continued to operate on a cash-only basis, while the Petro-Points app and login remained inaccessible. Some locations reported that car wash services were still unavailable.
Ian L. Paterson, CEO of the Vancouver-based cybersecurity company, Plurilock Security Inc., commented that these public issues might only be scratching the surface. He also noted that there have been reports of Suncor employees being unable to log into their internal accounts since Friday.
Paterson compared the current situation with the 2021 ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline in the U.S., which was the largest cyberattack on oil infrastructure in American history. The attack led to a temporary halt in pipeline operations, resulting in fuel supply disruption, panic buying, and temporary price surges.
In Canada, there has been no publicly disclosed successful large-scale cyberattack on a domestic oil and gas company until now, although earlier this year, Russian-backed hackers claimed to have accessed Canada’s natural gas infrastructure. The legitimacy of that claim remains uncertain.
The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), a part of the federal Communications Security Establishment, has warned that Canada’s energy industry is a desirable target for cybercriminals. The agency attributes this to the high-value assets of the industry and the critical nature of the industry’s products and services. The CCCS considers ransomware as the main threat to oil and gas supplies.
While politically driven attacks are less common, state-sponsored cybercriminals, particularly those associated with Russia, China, and Iran, have targeted the global energy sector in the past for espionage and creating disruption.
At this point, there are no signs that Suncor’s crucial infrastructures like oilsands facilities or refineries have been compromised by the cyberattack. The company also claimed that there’s no evidence that any customer, supplier, or employee data has been misused or compromised.
Paterson pointed out that in the best-case scenario, Suncor might have detected the breach quickly. However, due to the extensive range of services and large-scale operation, he cautioned that it might take the company a long time to fully resolve the issue. If the cybercriminals have had access for a prolonged period, rooting them out could be a lengthy process.