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Yes. Dragos tracked 119 ransomware groups targeting industrial organizations worldwide in 2025, up from 80 in 2024, while U.S. and Canadian advisories warn that pro-Russia hacktivists are targeting exposed industrial control systems and other operational technology (OT). The numbers are not a North America-only count, but the warnings and reported incidents make the risk concrete for utilities, manufacturers and other critical-infrastructure operators.
What the reported increase means
OT is the hardware and software used to monitor or control physical processes, including industrial control systems (ICS), programmable logic controllers (PLCs), human-machine interfaces (HMIs) and engineering workstations. An attacker who reaches these systems may affect operations, not just steal files.
Dragos tracks groups and incidents affecting industrial organizations. Its figures show a sharp rise in the number of ransomware groups targeting the sector, but they are not a census of every group or attack worldwide, and they do not isolate North American activity.
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| Measure | Reported figure | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Ransomware groups targeting industrial organizations in 2023 | 50 | Dragos-tracked groups, as reported in its 2025 review. |
| Ransomware groups targeting industrial organizations in 2024 | 80, up 60% from 50 in 2023 | Dragos-tracked groups, as reported in its 2025 review. Dragos also documented 1,693 ransomware attacks against industrial organizations in 2024, an 87% increase from the previous year. |
| Ransomware groups targeting industrial organizations in 2025 | 119, up from 80 in 2024 | Dragos-tracked groups, as reported in its 2026 review. Dragos said they collectively impacted 3,300 organizations and ransomware attacks increased 64% year over year. |
| OT threat groups in 2024 | 23 worldwide, with nine active in OT operations | Dragos’s 2025 reporting. This is a separate measure from the count of ransomware groups. |
These measures should not be added together: ransomware groups are one category of financially motivated actor, while the broader OT threat-group count includes other kinds of adversaries. Nor does the increase in tracked groups mean every group directly operated an industrial process; criminal groups may reach OT by compromising IT, VPNs or remote services first.
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Why North American operators are specifically at risk
CISA and its partners warned that pro-Russia hacktivists were targeting vulnerable ICS and small-scale OT in North American and European critical-infrastructure sectors. The sectors named include water and wastewater, dams, energy, and food and agriculture. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security has separately described a growing number of non-state actors targeting internet-connected Canadian OT for disruptive or destructive effects.
In a May 1, 2024 statement, NSA Director of Cybersecurity Dave Luber said: “This year we have observed pro-Russia hacktivists expand their targeting to include vulnerable North American and European industrial control systems.” CISA and NSA documented cases in the United States in which pro-Russia hacktivists remotely manipulated HMIs at water and wastewater facilities. The reported cases generally caused limited physical disruption, but unauthorized changes to an operator interface can still obscure conditions or interfere with control.
The group names below illustrate different kinds of activity identified in the cited reporting; they are not a complete list of actors targeting North America. Dragos’s tracking is global, while government advisories describe particular regions or incidents, and attribution is not equally clear in every case.
Which kinds of groups are targeting industrial environments?
Pro-Russia hacktivists
These actors have targeted vulnerable ICS and small-scale OT, including remote manipulation of exposed HMIs in U.S. water and wastewater cases. Hacktivist activity may be intended to disrupt, intimidate or attract attention; the documented incidents generally had limited physical effects, but the access itself can undermine operators’ ability to trust what an interface displays.
Voltzite (Volt Typhoon)
Dragos tracks Voltzite, also known as Volt Typhoon, as an OT-relevant actor associated with China and critical-infrastructure targeting. This is a state-linked threat category, distinct from opportunistic criminal ransomware, and should not be conflated with the specific hacktivist cases described above.
Electrum (Sandworm)
Dragos tracks Electrum, also known as Sandworm, as a Russia-linked group with destructive OT capabilities, including wiper activity. A wiper is malware designed to erase or damage data; in an industrial context, destructive actions can hinder recovery as well as disrupt operations.
Bauxite
Dragos identifies Bauxite as a group aligned with Iranian interests and warns of campaigns against critical infrastructure. Its inclusion reflects the wider range of state-aligned threats relevant to industrial defenders, not proof that every named group has attacked every North American sector.
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Ransomware groups are financially motivated and numerous. Their route into an industrial environment may begin with an IT account, a compromised VPN, an exposed remote service or credentials reused across systems. A criminal operator does not need to be an OT specialist to create operational risk if a compromised business network is connected to control systems or if remote access is poorly restricted.
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How attackers reach OT
Remote access is often necessary for maintenance and support, but an exposed or weakly protected path can give an attacker a route to an HMI or a bridge from enterprise IT into an industrial network. CISA’s fact sheet urges operators to harden HMI remote access and implement multifactor authentication (MFA).
- Internet-exposed HMI or VNC: A control interface or remote desktop service reachable from the public internet can invite unauthorized access, especially if credentials are weak or unchanged from their defaults.
- Poorly secured remote access: Remote connections without MFA, tightly scoped permissions or adequate monitoring can be abused after credentials are stolen or guessed.
- VPN or external-service compromise: Attackers may compromise an account or service used by staff or vendors, then use that foothold to reach internal systems.
- Movement from IT into OT: If enterprise and industrial networks are not adequately separated, an intrusion that starts with ordinary business systems may progress toward operational assets.
These paths can overlap. The practical concern is not only who is attacking, but whether an attacker can reach a control interface, change what an operator sees, interfere with a process or prevent safe recovery.
What an OT attack can do to operations
Industrial consequences extend beyond data theft. A compromised or unavailable HMI can cause loss of view: operators may be unable to see reliable process status. An attacker or outage that prevents commands from reaching equipment can cause loss of control. Either condition may require staff to halt or restrict operations until they can verify the process and restore safe control.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsIn incidents to which Dragos responders were called, 75% led to a partial OT shutdown and 25% to a full shutdown, according to Dragos’s 2025 reporting. Those percentages describe that responder-involved set of incidents, not all industrial ransomware attacks. They nevertheless show why an intrusion that begins as a cyber incident can become an uptime and safety problem.
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How utilities and manufacturers can reduce exposure
Prioritize protections according to whether a weakness could cause loss of view, loss of control or an unsafe interruption. The following measures address the remote-access and network paths emphasized in the government guidance and incident reporting.
- Remove unnecessary public access. Identify HMIs, VNC services and other control interfaces reachable from the internet. Remove that exposure unless there is a clear operational need; where remote access is necessary, put it behind a controlled, monitored access path rather than leaving the interface directly exposed.
- Require MFA on remote access. Apply MFA to every supported remote-access route, including vendor and maintenance access. Use individual accounts with permissions limited to the systems and tasks each person needs.
- Replace default and shared credentials. Change default passwords and eliminate shared administrator accounts where feasible. Individual accounts improve accountability and make it easier to remove access when a person or vendor no longer needs it.
- Separate OT from IT and the public internet. Segment industrial networks so that access from enterprise systems is controlled rather than automatic. Monitor traffic crossing between zones and pay particular attention to engineering workstations and remote connections that can reach control assets.
- Inventory operational assets and remote services. Record PLCs, HMIs, engineering workstations, remote-access services and their connections. Use that inventory to prioritize vulnerabilities that could affect an operator’s view or control of a process.
- Prepare for safe operation and recovery. Maintain tested offline recovery capabilities and manual operating procedures for safety-critical processes. Recovery plans should account for the possibility that control systems or the systems needed to administer them are unavailable.
- Monitor and report. Watch for unusual remote logins, unexpected access to HMIs or engineering systems, and suspicious movement across IT/OT boundaries. Report incidents through the relevant national or sector channel and apply current CISA, NSA or Canadian guidance relevant to the organization.
Choosing monitoring and security support for OT
Tools and services should be assessed against the plant’s operating conditions and legacy equipment, not just a general IT feature list. Before selecting an OT monitoring platform or external support, ask:
- Visibility: Does it passively observe the OT protocols and assets actually present in the environment?
- Remote-access detection: Can it help identify abuse of HMI, VNC, VPN, vendor or engineering access?
- Identity and segmentation: Can it work with the organization’s identity controls and reveal traffic crossing OT/IT boundaries?
- Incident response: Is OT-specific response support available when an event could affect operations?
- Safety and uptime: Can the deployment and monitoring approach avoid unacceptable effects on safety-critical or fragile systems?
- Legacy deployment: Can it provide useful visibility where equipment is old, sensitive to change or unable to run modern endpoint software?
For smaller water, manufacturing or public-sector operators, start with an accurate asset and remote-access inventory, removing unnecessary exposure, securing accounts and defining an incident-reporting route. Those steps address common paths without assuming that every facility can replace legacy controls or deploy the same monitoring architecture.
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