The Cyber Threat to Critical Infrastructure Isn’t a Headline — It’s a Relentless, Systemic Reality

When the Colonial Pipeline attack in 2021 shut down fuel deliveries to the East Coast, it was a wake-up call for the nation. Gas shortages, panic buying, and emergency federal actions made it clear that a single cyber incident could ripple across millions of lives in days. But Colonial was not an isolated event—it was just the most visible at the time.

From water utilities and power grids to hospitals and local governments, cyberattacks on critical infrastructures are no longer rare “black swans.” They’re routine—and increasingly disruptive. Despite billions invested in detection-heavy, “assume breach” frameworks, adversaries are still delaying utility operations, interrupting services, and pre-positioning for future sabotage. Defenses are built on reacting after intrusion, while attackers operate patiently, horizontally, and at scale.

The Expanding Scope of Cyberattacks on Critical Infrastructure

In the years since Colonial Pipeline, the number and variety of critical infrastructure targets under cyber assault has grown dramatically.

U.S. water sector under sustained pressure. In Pennsylvania, hackers linked to Iran compromised a water authority’s control systems, forcing operators into manual workarounds. Similar attempts have been reported across multiple states, highlighting the sector’s growing exposure.

Local government outages keep mounting. Cities in Texas, Minnesota, Florida, New York, and Wisconsin have seen services—from payments to emergency call centers—knocked offline, reminding us that “critical” includes municipal operations that communities depend on.

States governments under siege. From Rhode Island’s social services breach to Nevada’s ransomware shutdown and Arizona’s election portal hack, state governments have become prime targets, disrupting vital public systems and exposing sensitive citizen data.

Nation-state pre-positioning for disruption. A joint advisory from CISA, NSA, and partners detailed China state-sponsored “Volt Typhoon” activity to maintain access inside U.S. critical infrastructure networks—expressly to enable potential disruptive/destructive operations later.

Healthcare as critical infrastructure—real-world consequences. The Change Healthcare attack rippled across pharmacies, providers, and patients, with HHS and industry analyses describing unprecedented data exposure and operational disruption across the U.S. healthcare ecosystem.

What These Breaches Have in Common

1. Long dwell times and persistence—not one-off hits. Nation-state actors are explicitly staging for later effects, blending into routine traffic and supply chains. That means traditional alert-driven SOC workflows (investigate—contain—restore) will always be a step behind.

2. Operational technology (OT) exposure. Programmable logic controllers (PLCs), human- machine interfaces or HMIs (devices or software used to monitor and control industrial machinery), and gateways remain reachable or indirectly exposed via IT paths and third parties. Vendor ecosystems expand the attack surface and complicate recovery.

3. Cascade effects from single points of failure. Clearinghouses or regional utilities become choke points. When one is hit, impacts propagate across providers, counties, and grid zones.

The Imminent Threat of Quantum Computing

In addition to today’s cyber threats, critical infrastructures face an even stronger storm on the horizon: quantum computing. Once operational at scale, quantum systems will be able to break many of the cryptographic algorithms that secure communications, identity systems, and critical operations today.

For attackers already embedded in networks, this presents a “harvest now, decrypt later” opportunity—stealing encrypted data now to unlock it when quantum capabilities mature. The implication is clear: infrastructure operators must prepare not just for today’s threats, but for a near-future where current encryption standards no longer provide safety.

Reactive Approaches Leave Critical Systems Exposed

Today’s cybersecurity defenses are dominated by reactive models—frameworks built around the assumption that breaches are inevitable and must be managed after the fact. Reactive models including extended detection and response (XDR) and Zero Trust are important, but insufficient. By definition, they accept that attackers will succeed and place the burden on detection and response.

Detection-first solutions fail against adversaries who can hide in networks for months or even years—abusing legitimate login credentials, exploiting active directory and identity platforms to create new accounts, and moving slowly to avoid thresholds. They provide alerts without preventing operational impact. Meanwhile, operational technology (OT) environments can’t always afford noisy controls or frequent patch windows—creating pockets where visibility exists, but enforcement is weak. Our nation’s most vital systems are perpetually vulnerable.

From Reactive to Resilient By Default—Complex, Costly, and Still Not Enough

The latest evolution in cybersecurity thinking is toward “resilient by default” systems—architectures designed so that essential services can continue operating even during an active attack. But these systems are also responsive: the assumption is that breaches will happen, and resilience is about minimizing disruption afterward.

A resilient-by-default blueprint moves beyond “catch and contain” by hardening critical systems, limiting attack paths, and prioritizing operational continuity. It combines strict OT controls, tested failover playbooks, vendor isolation, and threat-led testing to keep essential services running and stop minor breaches from escalating into major crises.

However, this type of architecture is enormously costly in terms of time, talent, and budget. Every layer—micro-perimeters, vendor segmentation, threat-led testing—requires specialized expertise and constant upkeep at a time when most organizations face severe cybersecurity workforce shortages and strapped budgets. This means teams are stretched thin trying to maintain extraordinarily complex defenses while attackers exploit the simplest weakness: stolen credentials.

The irony is that much of this burden could be avoided by preventing the breach from occurring—preventing adversaries’ from gaining access, rather than building ever more elaborate systems to catch and contain them after the fact.

The Bottom Line—Security Credentials to Prevent the Breach

Critical infrastructure adversaries are patient, well-resourced, and increasingly embedded. The primary attack vector enabling them is the use of legitimate, but stolen login credentials. Passwords, multi-factor tokens, and device-based authenticators were never designed to safeguard power grids, hospitals, or water systems—they were designed to log people in quickly and conveniently. Even modern passkeys are marketed as a way to escape the daily hassles of passwords rather than as a fundamental fix to the underlying security problem. Once attackers possess valid credentials, they can operate as trusted insiders—bypassing detection and causing lasting damage.

Losing sensitive data or even corporate systems can often be overcome, but the failure of critical infrastructure—our power, water, telecommunications, healthcare, and transportation networks—carries consequences that could be devastating. Protecting critical infrastructure requires a shift to credentials created for security—enterprise-controlled, immune to compromise, and engineered to stop adversaries, not enable them. Security credentials will allow organizations to break from the cycle of reaction and secure the critical infrastructures we cannot afford to lose.