According to Mike Spear, industrial cyber security global operations director at Honeywell, cyber attacks in the oil and gas sector increased over the past year.

“You’re looking at about 365,000 new malware every year … that’s like four per second,

“What we’re seeing is in the space, or in what we call the process industries … the level of the malware, the more sophistication that’s coming up,” ” Spear told Rigzone during a briefing at a recent conference in Madrid.

“Some of it now is being very targeted, which is kind of different than it was say five years ago. Everybody was focused on the financial systems, the Walmarts … that type of chain, now we’re seeing a significant increase targeting the critical infrastructure of the process industries,

“Financial of course is doing much better … and then hospitals I think are doing a pretty good job. They still have a bit to go, but they’re still way ahead,” ” Spear continued.