Cyber Attacks in Manufacturing: How to Protect Your Company

Editor’s note: Mark Dohnalek is President & CEO of Pivot International, US-based global manufacturing, technology, engineering & product development firm.

Watch out manufacturers because criminals are lurking, using new techniques to defeat legacy security measures, resulting in a 260% increase in cyber attacks. According to the 2020 State of Encrypted Attacks report, the manufacturing sector is the most targeted industry for malicious browser breaches, comprising 38.6% of attacks.

These attacks often result in theft of customer data, intellectual property, and other valuable information, which cybercriminals may exploit themselves or sell to the highest bidder.

Just as importantly, a cyber attack can take down a company’s entire IT system and bring its operations to a virtual halt, resulting in untold amounts of lost revenue. The risk has become too great to ignore, and leaders must take steps to protect their company and their customers. Unfortunately, as an industry, manufacturers struggle with the technological obsolescence of legacy network equipment.

These systems often precede the digital revolution and were not designed to defend against data breaches. Between fragmentation and technological obsolescence, manufacturing company security systems have wide gaps making them vulnerable to cyber threats.

The question, then, is how can leaders successfully go about this? Here are X ways to protect your company and guard against malicious browser breaches.

1. Know the signs. The first phase of a cyber attack is called “phishing,” which is when they impersonate a respected brand or trusted company’s tech support team during the break-in. But it can be identified if your team is trained on how to find it. Hackers cripple your system but hang around, acting as an innocent source of support for solving it. This good cop/bad cop game is played using malicious web redirects from compromised websites. Tech teams need to be on the ready when they receive pop-up alerts that your system has been hacked, along with a “helpful” fake offer using a well-known name brand to “fix” it by submitting payment information. A skilled IT executive or project manager will “Microsoft” to “fix” it — provided you first issue a credit card number.
2. Be aware of email attempts. The next phase is usually a more elaborate plot to succeed at credential theft through email attempts. If unaware, and someone at your company takes the bait, these scams have the potential to render your system defenseless against malware installation, and eventually, to corporate data theft. Cybercriminals will keep at it even with sophisticated spam filters, and deceptive emails often eventually get through. Manufacturers and supply chain partner companies need visibility into the nooks and crannies of their networks and the ability to monitor all users as needed.
3. Invest in technology. Your best chance to avoid falling victim is to keep the attackers out altogether. Allocate resources in software, services, and training that will make a difference in your vulnerability. Use cloud-native proxy-based architecture to inspect every user across all traffic to decrypt, detect, and prevent threats in all SSL traffic. Additionally, deploy AI-driven quarantine measures to contain suspicious activity, store it for analysis, and stop malware installation.

4. End fragmentation and use apps. Whenever possible, adopt technology that ensures all your facilities and users fall under a unified network umbrella of IT infrastructure and security. And, yes, there is an app for that! Use apps which, by definition, are not detectable to attackers. This will give your team authorized access to resources and data without exposing the entire network.

To maintain the highest protection against cyber-attacks, manufacturers and supply chain companies should centralize coordination and oversight across their business model and technology stack. This will lead to alignment across all company facilities and afford your clients and partners maximum data security.

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