As manufacturers innovate, cyberattackers are innovating, too. Investing in smart technologies is a key part of reaching Industry 4.0 and can produce huge efficiency and productivity wins across your manufacturing ecosystem. But with the integration of new technologies, bringing together IT and OT, you risk broadening your attack surface for cybercriminals.

Manufacturing is the most attacked industry globally.¹ Not only this, the potential repercussions of a data breach go beyond damage to reputation, financial penalties and remedial costs. Attacks that interfere with production processes can pose a risk to public safety as well as compromising the safety of your workforce and facilities.

Here are some types of attack a manufacturer could face:

• Ransomware: IP and trade secrets are held hostage by cybercriminals until a ransom is paid
• Phishing: A fraudulent email or website is used to trick your workers into compromising their data or devices
• Man-in-the-middle attacks: Hackers intercept and manipulate your workers, tricking them into sharing files and information with them instead of their colleagues.

Breaches like these can compromise many different types of data, including financial data and records, customer data, research and development material and design files. With the consequences of attacks or data losses being so severe, it’s no surprise that cybercriminals rely on manufacturers just paying up to avoid them.

By investing in the right security technology you can simplify, enhance and automate security across your business to help to keep your operations running and better protect your data.

Ensure a unified approach to cybersecurity.

It’s vital that IT and OT teams work closely together and collaborate to ensure a unified approach to cybersecurity. Align OT security policies with overall organisational cybersecurity policies to help ensure cyberattackers can’t capitalise on any gaps in your defences.

OT machinery and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies make tempting targets for attackers and integrating new technologies can give cybercriminals more surface to attack. Vulnerability and penetration testing can help you find flaws and gaps in your IIoT network so your cybersecurity team can fix them before an attack happens.

Know the threats to mitigate them.

Knowledge empowers. By understanding potential threats, you can make more informed decisions regarding your security budget, enhance your defensive measures, bolster your defences—and, ultimately—maintain productivity and business-as-usual.

The Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) is an authoritative source of cybersecurity breach information. Each year, the DBIR team analyses tens of thousands of incidents and breaches from around the world. They identify cybersecurity trends and help organisations take a data-driven approach to optimising their cybersecurity programs.

When we're talking to manufacturers about security transformation, they often say that understanding their estate is a barrier to change.

There are solutions that can help with that. Automated discovery tools can help identify devices on the network that are accessing data. IoT platforms, like ThingSpace, can help simplify managing and securing IoT devices. And data loss prevention (DLP) tools can help locate and classify data, and set up rules and alerts around moving and sharing it.

Don't be afraid to ask for help.

Simplifying solutions and leveraging automation has a critical role to play in easing the burden on the internal team. But most companies still choose to rely on third-party help. External partners can do much more than provide staff augmentation. They can provide expertise and share experience gained from tackling a wide-range of security challenges. The right partner can help you turn security into a competitive advantage, by creating a robust environment that enables innovation and allows you to focus on what differentiates your business.

Verizon has vast experience helping manufacturers solve some of their biggest challenges. We have decades of relevant experience, which enables us to provide practical and effective advice. Our global network, computing and security ecosystem can help you manage risk transformation, accelerate change and better achieve the promise of digital technologies.