Manufacturing companies face a distinctive set of cybersecurity challenges, with human error frequently acting as a gateway for potential breaches. While technological solutions are essential, they cannot replace the need for having thorough employee training in place. Comprehensive cybersecurity programs designed for the manufacturing environment can educate staff on the specific threats they may encounter, safe online practices, and the importance of strong password management.
Cybersecurity is becoming increasingly important in the manufacturing sector as cyber threats grow in complexity and frequency. With the advent of digital transformation, automation, and the widespread use of IoT devices, the potential attack surface for organizations has expanded significantly. The FBI's Internet Crime Report underscores the urgency of the situation, revealing that Internet crime is one of the fastest-growing threats facing the United States, with over 460,000 complaints received in 2019 alone. These include sophisticated attacks targeting manufacturing systems, from ransomware to data breaches, emphasizing the immediate need to address these threats.
For instance, Clorox, a leading manufacturer and distributor of consumer and professional goods, experienced a massive cyber attack in 2023 that disrupted its operations and took many automated systems offline, impacting large retailers that they work with, like Walmart and Target. While the nature of the attack wasn't confirmed as ransomware, the resulting operational downtime and a 20 percent decline in sales led to losses of $356 million in total. The incident also caused a steep drop in Clorox's stock price and an additional $25 million expense for securing their systems post-breach.
The interconnected nature of manufacturing operations means that a cyber incident can quickly lead to operational disruptions, causing significant financial losses, reputational damage, and even safety risks. Because of this, it’s essential for your company to carefully develop cybersecurity strategies that are tailored to the distinct and specific needs of the manufacturing industry to mitigate these risks far more effectively.
Human Error as a Primary Vulnerability
Cybersecurity breaches in the manufacturing sector are often heavily influenced by human error. Employees may inadvertently compromise security by clicking on phishing links, mishandling sensitive data, or failing to adhere to proper protocols. Even something like scanning a QR code can be a vector for attack, and it’s happened before, numerous times in fact. Thankfully, a combination of employee training and insisting on the use of secure QR code scanners with built-in anti-malware features should be enough to counteract those risks.
The Microsoft Azure data breach is a notable example of these attacks in action, and the damage that they can cause. In this case, sophisticated phishing attacks targeted mid-level and senior executives, exploiting their lack of awareness to gain unauthorized access to sensitive information. The sophistication of these attacks is rising, as they often closely resemble real communications, tricking employees into divulging sensitive information or installing malicious software.
According to a recent IBM report, the average cost of a data breach has escalated to $4.45 million per incident. Such incidents can severely impact a company's bottom line and erode customer trust, leading to long-term consequences.
Designing an Effective Employee Training Program
Manufacturers often deal with several industry-specific risks, such as ransomware targeting industrial control systems or business email compromise (BEC) scams. These particular scams involve a cybercriminal impersonating a high-level executive and requesting a wire transfer or sensitive information from an employee.In fact, manufacturing has experienced 63 percent more BEC investigations than any other industry, surpassing sectors like healthcare, education, business services, insurance, and technology. Phishing and spear phishing attacks often compromise user credentials, which threat actors can then exploit to assess potential opportunities for further cybercrime.
An effective training program for manufacturing employees should include several core components:
- Employees must be trained to identify and report phishing attempts, which are common tactics that cybercriminals use to gain unauthorized access
- Include real-life scenarios and examples of typical phishing tactics, such as deceptive emails that appear to come from trusted sources, to enhance understanding and readiness.
- Involve all relevant stakeholders when it comes to choosing the necessary software they’re going to use for their in-office roles. Whether it’s a page manipulation app or something more complex, like temperature regulation sensors management software, it must be both compliant and verifiable by internal teams and third parties alike.
- Hold regular security assessments to determine where your company stands. Conducting penetration tests and vulnerability scans is crucial to help your team identify and address any potential security gaps. These assessments are proactive measures to ensure that the company's defenses are up-to-date and robust enough to withstand new and changing cyber threats.
- Proper password management is also a key focus area, as weak passwords can be a major vulnerability. Because of this, your cybersecurity training should cover best practices for creating strong, unique passwords and the use of password managers to secure access to sensitive systems and data.
- The use of artificial intelligence or AI and machine learning tools can help companies simulate potential real-world cyber attacks, which can provide your employees with incredibly valuable hands-on experience. These practical exercises are invaluable in reinforcing theoretical knowledge and helping employees understand the complexities of cyber threats and how to respond to them effectively. Such immersive training methods don't just improve the skills of your team; it can also boost confidence in handling potential cyber incidents.
Trying to implement comprehensive cybersecurity training in your organization can be challenging, particularly for small to mid-sized manufacturers facing budget constraints and lead to infrequent training sessions, outdated materials, limited access to advanced tools and technologies, and weakened overall effectiveness of training
And many employees might see training sessions as a disruption to their daily routines or consider them a low-priority task. Making the training engaging and relevant can help address this issue through methods like gamification, can help mitigate these issues. Another significant challenge is maintaining up-to-date training since cyber threats are constantly evolving, meaning that training programs need to keep pace to remain effective. With this in mind, regularly updating your training materials and periodically integrating new security technologies and practices are essential for maintaining a strong cybersecurity stance.
Finally, it’s important to know that employee training never ends. Whenever you integrate new security measures—whether it’s access control to avoid unintentional leaks, bare metal servers to reduce the risk of cross-tenant attacks and provide a greater degree of hardware control, or enhanced data encryption capabilities to protect sensitive information—it's important to make sure that your employees are thoroughly trained on these new features.
Having an ongoing commitment to education equips employees with the latest knowledge and skills to counter emerging threats, building a workforce capable of protecting the company's digital assets.
