Guest blog courtesy of CYRISMA.
The manufacturing sector has experienced an increasing number of cyber attacks over the past few years because of the growing interconnectedness between IT and operational technology (OT).
Organizations in the sector have traditionally prioritized operational speed and efficiency over cyber risk management – something that may not have created huge security issues at a time when there was a clear separation between OT and IT. However, with more manufacturing technology (often older and less secure than IT) and processes exposed to the internet, it’s getting harder for manufacturers to secure their operations and data against attacks. Businesses’ increasing dependence on third parties for monitoring and maintenance further exacerbates the problem, with remote access requirements introducing more security gaps into their IT environments.
The manufacturing sector now accounts for 25.7 percent of cyber attacks, with ransomware involved in 71 percent of these incidents. Research also suggests that attacks on the sector are growing at the rate of 125 percent each year.
Cybersecurity challenges for manufacturers:
Historically, the biggest motive for attacks against Manufacturing has been espionage and getting access to intellectual property and industry secrets. This has been replaced by financial gain over the past few years, with Verizon’s most recent Data Breach Investigations Report finding that 97 percent of attacks in 2024 were motivated by financial gain. Top attack patterns included System Intrusion and Social Engineering.
Attractive target for ransomware because companies can’t afford downtime
Manufacturers are easy targets for ransomware because they cannot afford operational disruptions and downtime. According to the Sophos State of Ransomware Report, 65 percent of Manufacturing sector organizations were hit by ransomware in 2024, up 9 percent compared to 2023. The biggest root cause for attacks was found to be malicious emails (29%), followed by exploited vulnerability (27%) and compromised credentials (25%). The sector (included under “Industrial” in the Cost of a Data Breach report) also saw the biggest jump in the average cost of a breach, going from $4.73 million in 2023 to $5.56 million in 2024.
What manufacturers can do for cyber risk reduction
To prevent system intrusions and breaches, manufacturers must secure their systems and the data stored on those systems by taking a holistic approach to risk reduction. This would include:
In addition to these basic preventive controls, organizations must also deploy strong threat detection and response tools for quick detection and neutralization of threats that make it into internal networks. All businesses must develop and test incident response plans and playbooks to handle potential intrusion attempts and attacks.
To successfully manage supply chain risk, organizations should evaluate the security policies and controls implemented by their supply chain partners and vendors and also carefully control the level of access provided to external entities.
How CYRISMA can help
CYRISMA is a multi-capability SaaS platform that combines essential cyber risk discovery, assessment, mitigation, and management tools; and a complete compliance module in a unified ecosystem. Built to reduce cybersecurity complexity and costs, CYRISMA enables manufacturing organizations to streamline their risk management operations and mitigate risk more efficiently. In addition to identifying and fixing vulnerabilities, strengthening system configuration and discovering and securing sensitive data, businesses can also use CYRISMA to quantify risk in financial terms, allowing them to make better security investments that have real impact.
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