The digitization of the manufacturing industry has presented businesses with a benefit galore. As more manufacturing organizations move towards automation, they can enjoy faster product turnover as well as a more refined accuracy in terms of quality. Ideally, you will require embracing hyper-connectivity of industrial devices to streamline the level of control you can have on them and increase the speed of data collection.

Sadly, this convenience comes with a lot of risks for manufacturing industries, and cyber-criminals are often at the favorable end of this risk. While launching attacks against the various businesses, they can not only lead to huge losses but also maim the reputation of the businesses that they attack. 60% of small businesses affected by cyber-security attacks fail within six months of the attack. Since Stuxnet appeared in 2010 and wreaked unintended damage across many networks that were not its intended target, manufacturing and automated industrial processes realized the need to implement airtight security frameworks to protect their operations and ultimately safeguard intellectual property, productivity, and longevity. 

The trick to protecting your business and its reputation lies in creating the right cyber-security posture for it. Here is why you need to concentrate on cyber-security and the key areas to investigate:

Why Cyber-Security Matters for the Manufacturing Industry

Data Protection

Other than storing manufacturing data, businesses often need to store the details of their clients. The data that you can store includes personally identifiable data such as credit card numbers and clients’ addresses. In the wrong hands, such data can easily be the beginning of identity theft.

As a result, building a healthy cyber-security posture gives you a competitive edge in the eyes of clients as they can be sure that their data will be safe in your hands. It also becomes quite easy to recover from successful security breaches. A well-outlined cyber-security strategy ensures that you can both reduce the monetary losses and recover from the damaged reputation.

Comply with Regulations

Regulations are meant to standardize the manufacturing industry as well as create a favorable atmosphere for doing businesses for both clients and organizations. As the market reach of your product increases, so does the number of regulations that you need to comply with. For instance, venturing into the European markets will require you to comply with the privacy laws outlined in the GDPR.

Failure to comply with the laws will often have you paying hefty fines, not to mention the idea of being unappealing to some clients. Instead of being a one-time investment, compliance will typically need your business to update your business model per the changing regulations. A good cyber-security posture will ensure that you keep your business on the right side of the law. It also makes sure that you are always ready for impromptu compliance audits.

Protecting Intellectual Property

Your Intellectual Property (business secrets) is at the core of how you conduct businesses. If you happen to own disruptive innovations, competitors will be looking for ways to get their hands on them. The more you can keep such secrets protected, the bigger the promises of a reliable market share.

Sadly, both competitors and hackers may attack your business to gain access to your IP. While hackers will most likely sell it to the highest bidder, competitors will use it to elevate their business model to gain a competitive edge. Being keen on cyber-security will allow you to identify the most sensitive data and the best ways to protect it from ever-evolving threats.

Protect Your Daily Operations

In 2017, the WannaCry ransomware took the world by surprise since hackers could successfully hold a business’ data captive. You would only have gotten your data back after paying some ransom. Such attacks can quickly impair your daily activities.

Even worse, the infiltration of IoT devices in the manufacturing industry increases the risk of having your internal operations impaired. Most of these devices barely come with enough security features to prevent such attacks. Not only will this mean slower product delivery to customers, but it can also increase the risks of losing your business once hackers find ways to stall all your IoT devices indefinitely.

Often, the companies behind these devices tend to launch security patches to deal with the current vulnerabilities in their products. With an ill-defined cyber-security strategy, it might be tough to identify such updates, which increases the chances of a security breach. Ideally, you need to also invest in network segmentation and endpoint security tools to prevent common threats.

Cyber-Security Goes Beyond Prevention

The aspect of cyber-security attacks is no longer a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when.’ Industry-wide data attacks will happen regularly, and the end of a wave of specific attacks means the beginning of new ones. While an attack might have ended, there is a chance that your system might have already been infiltrated, especially if you are using outdated prevention tools.

The trick, in this case, is to identify the attack and weed it out of your system. On the other hand, some attacks might be too complex to prevent, which calls for a proactive approach towards cyber-security. Not only will you identify threats from miles away, but it will be easier to build a great cyber-security posture. As a result, relying solely on the prevention tool is unwise and by adopting an appropriate ISO standard and keeping your security framework up to date you can hedge many of the attacks that afflict others in your space.

Detection and Incidence Response Matters

Does everyone within your organization understand the role that they have to play in case of a cyber-attack? On the onset of the attack, PR guys should work to calm your valued stakeholders while protecting the image of your business. Your IT team should be working to tone down the effects of an attack as well as eliminate it. The only way to truly survive an attack will be if everyone plays their role perfectly.

A great security posture starts with a robust threat detection system. You need to have a team that is ready to analyze security data and neutralize the threats on short notice. This team should also know how to tell false alerts apart from the real threats.

Most importantly, you should test your threat detection and incident response procedures to ensure that they are foolproof. A simple tabletop exercise might be enough to identify the loopholes in your procedures. For instance, the lack of a person to alert key investors on the security situation of your business might be a PR nightmare. Such critical areas of the incidence response plan should be addressed during the testing phase. ​​​​​​​

Remember, the question isn’t about whether a breach will occur; it is about how ready you are to face a security threat. A good posture will not only help you prevent costly business losses, but it will also help you attract security-cautious clients. Focus on both preventing and detecting security threats to solidify the future of your manufacturing business.