This fourth industrial revolution is transforming the manufacturing industry at an unprecedented rate. Novel dangers and new productivity and efficiency growth forms characterize these tectonic transitions. To better protect their critical systems, businesses should be aware of the cybersecurity threats they face and take steps to mitigate them by deploying effective cybersecurity measures.
What are the cybersecurity risks facing the manufacturing industry?
Even if your company does not have a complex manufacturing cybersecurity procedure, you should know your company’s five most common cybersecurity threats. Preventative measures include getting to know the people you’re working with.
Identity Theft
To start the list in this must-read manufacturing blog, a hacker uses a victim’s Social Security Number to apply for a loan or credit line, this is considered identity theft. Problems arise when hackers use malware to gain access to a customer database and steal personal information, especially in manufacturing.
Phishing
The act of phishing occurs when an attacker creates convincing emails and uses them to trick recipients into providing personal information such as passwords or credit card numbers. Branded letterheads and other similar elements are commonly used in these correspondences to bolster their credibility. Generic greetings like “Dear valued client” are common in phishing emails that are sent to many recipients.
Spear Phishing
It is possible to conduct spear-phishing attacks on only a single individual or department. In contrast to the phishing attempts previously described, these customized communications are more specialized and relevant to the recipient’s interest. For example, a spear-phishing email about an invoice or tax form could be sent to someone in the accounting department.
Spear phishing attempts pretend to be from a company executive and may seek information regarding logging into the industrial control systems of a corporation (ICS). If a corporation uses identity and access management (IAM) solutions, spear phishing emails may have a lower success rate.
Someone pretending to be the CEO of an IAM-enabled organization might send an email with a request. Because the true CEO should be aware of the access restrictions that the phishing email would break, this individual is likely to assume something is amiss.
Spam
It’s annoying to the typical person to get spam, but it may greatly influence manufacturing operations. The IT workers at a Dunlop Industrial factory in South Africa had to manually sort through roughly 12,000 spam letters daily, a routine that took up to 90 minutes and kept them from more productive usages of their time.
DVIRC offers manufacturing training programs to prevent spam and malware from reaching employee inboxes. The company also created a mail service solution that filtered messages for spam and malware before users could read them . As long as it is difficult to tell the difference between a spam message and one from an actual customer or supplier, the spam problem will continue to be difficult to solve.
Vulnerable Websites
In a website attack, hackers can take control of a website and either disable it or fill it with deceptive content to trick customers. Site users’ systems may be inadvertently infected by malicious software that hackers have secretly embedded. These incidents can substantially impact the reputations of the industrial companies that participate in them.
Conclusion
Because of advances in technology, manufacturing has risen significantly. An increasing number of businesses are moving away from traditional business methods and toward more substantial internet activity. Their security is more vulnerable as a result. This means that manufacturers must be aware of the threats they face regarding cybersecurity. They must also know how to avoid and deal with dangers and threats they haven’t seen coming
