Cybercriminals Exploit ICS Computers via Scripts and Phishing Attacks

Industrial control systems (ICS) remain a cybersecurity battleground as threat actors use malicious scripts and phishing to target critical infrastructure. According to new data from Q2 2025, overall attack rates show a marginal decline, but email-based attacks and malicious documents continue to intensify within industrial environments.

The data reveals that 20.5% of ICS computers experienced blocked malicious objects in Q2 2025, a 1.4 percentage point drop from the previous quarter and a 3.0 percentage point fall versus Q2 2024. The regional picture is uneven, with Africa at 27.8% and Northern Europe at 11.2%, highlighting how geopolitical factors and cybersecurity investment shape vulnerability exposure. Email threats remain prominent, with malicious documents, spyware, malicious scripts and phishing pages forming the main categories. In total, Kaspersky security solutions blocked malware from 10,408 different malware families on industrial automation systems.