March 22, 2023
You and your predecessors have built the empire. You’ve toiled, sweated, and maybe even lost blood in the endeavor. You’ve provided livelihoods for hundreds, if not thousands, of families. At the drop of a hat, one wrong click of a link in an unsuspecting email caused you to almost lose it all or at least cause several hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to the business. What happened?
What can we learn?
Every day across the globe, $16.4 BILLION (with a B) of dollars are lost due to cybersecurity breaches and attacks. The American manufacturing infrastructure is some of the most vulnerable to these attacks. As our infrastructure developed and IIoT devices helped manufacturers keep up with the world, very little thought was put into the security of those devices and the entire manufacturing footprint in general.
Attacks can happen for a variety of reasons, but here are a few of the big ones:
Phishing: One of the most common and profound types of cyber-attacks around. Phishing attacks can be a pest or they can be a major disruptor in your business. Often times these attacks come in the form as an email from what appears to be a trusted source. A former vendor, a trusted supplier, maybe even an executive team member working from a machine that was already compromised. Phishing attacks have generally one goal in mind, and that’s to get the victim to act on something or pay for something in a scam.
Malware: Clicking an innocent-looking link in an email or online can often lead to disastrous consequences. Attackers can install a small piece of malicious code (Malware) on your system or device that essentially holds the device hostage or allows an attacker to control the device or machine. This can be a costly and time consuming endeavor to recover from.
Ransomware: Similar to a Malware attack but often times an attacker will demand a fee (ransom) be paid before they will remove the malicious code from your device or return any information. There is, of course, no guarantee that they will remove anything after a fee is paid either! According to the Association for Equipment Manufacturers:
As these attacks gain notoriety in our world and in the criminal underworld which they are often times helping fund, we must ask some important questions.
- Awareness and Training: You must have a basic cybersecurity awareness training level conducted at all organizational levels. You might be surprised to know that many information breaches happen at the factory floor level within organizations. Basic Cyber Hygiene, and awareness training is a great first line of defense in understanding threats and what should be done in the event of an information or cyber breach.
- Device Protection: If you have IoT or IIoT devices, on your shop floor, you must secure them with the proper device protection from malicious code. There are many vendors out there for this, we can help you with a solution for your needs.
- Security Audits: Conducting regular and scheduled security audits should be a part of an organization’s safety and security blueprint. These audits should be conducted by an independent third-party, similar to a 3rd party ISO 9001 surveillance audit to maintain neutrality and objectivity. This security audit can help uncover security risks in the organization that have gone unnoticed for far too long and discover helpful techniques for implementing solutions.
- Get Certified: There are many certifications on the market that incorporate industry Best Practices to secure your cyber defenses. One notable and burgeoning certification, CMMC (Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification), is especially poignant for manufacturers who make goods for the Government, Aerospace, or Defense industries. In fact, this will be a requirement very shortly.
Cybersecurity is a serious matter with potential for large losses. As cyber threats gain momentum and even automation, there is an increasing focus on cybersecurity and maintaining threat awareness to secure the empire that took so long to build.
Will you be ready?
Contact us today!
Also, consider reading this insight as well to learn how returning to the basics is a great place to start with AI.
