A recent survey of 485 IT experts and cybersecurity officials attending the 2020 RSA Conference in San Francisco last month found that nearly 90% believe the world is now in a permanent state of cyberwar. Security company Venafi conducted the survey as a follow up to its findings in 2018, when 86% of 515 IT security professionals at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas expressed the same belief. 

This year, 90% of cybersecurity pros said the near constant cyberattacks by militaries now left them concerned that digital infrastructure will suffer the most damage as a result. Another 60% of respondents said utilities like power, water and transportation, as well as healthcare, were particularly vulnerable to attack, with 19% telling Venafi researchers that power was the most vulnerable. Healthcare, transportation and water were all tied at 5%. 

"Security professionals are under constant siege from very sophisticated threat actors targeting government, military and private organizations. Powerful attack methods, like establishing backdoors with machine identities, are now available as commodity malware, making it harder for security professionals to defend against these attacks," said Kevin Bocek, vice president of security strategy and threat intelligence at Venafi. 

"The sophisticated cyberattacks that are the hallmark of nation state attacks often target digital keys and certificates that serve as machine identities."