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The rapid adoption of robotics, AI, and hyper-connected supply chains is reshaping manufacturing cybersecurity. To maximize productivity while managing the cyber risk new technology introduces, manufacturing organizations must find a way to align their cybersecurity program with business-critical priorities.
This guide explores the current state of manufacturing cybersecurity, highlights key challenges, and illustrates how solutions like X-Analytics can help manufacturers build cyber resilience.
The manufacturing industry is uniquely vulnerable due to its reliance on interconnected systems and complex supply chains and has been the most targeted sector for cyber attacks three years in a row. X-Analytics data from Q3 2024 highlights several key trends impacting the industry, including:
Manufacturing organizations face an average cyber exposure of 2.63% of their annual revenue. Research suggests that the cost of a cyber attack is increasing 125% YoY for manufacturing organizations, amplifying the critical need for effective cyber risk management in this sector.
Ransomware is the most significant exposure in manufacturing, making up 45% of total cyber exposure. This underscores the importance of implementing strategic risk mitigation measures such as comprehensive data backups, network segmentation, and employee training programs aimed at reducing the risk of successful ransomware attacks.
For manufacturing organizations to reduce their cyber risk, they should be focussing on effectively implementing the Protect function, which has the potential to reduce their cyber exposure by 58% – on average, bringing their exposure down to 1.53% of their annual revenue.
Manufacturing organizations face several unique challenges when it comes to cybersecurity:
The future of cybersecurity in manufacturing will demand advanced cyber risk insights, a proactive risk mitigation approach and a resilient ecosystem – from internal processes to supply chains.
The only constant in cyber risk management is change. Manufacturing organizations need an operationalized approach to identify emerging cyber threats and adapt their cybersecurity approach to combat them. Our guide to managing emerging cyber threats is essential reading for CISOs in the manufacturing industry.
So often, businesses implement cybersecurity initiatives or increase investment in light of a recent breach. By this point, the damage is often done and instead of prevention, the CISO is forced into damage limitation mode, where the potential for success is severely limited. Instead, organizations need to move to a proactive cyber risk management approach, where they continually monitor their current exposure and implement actions to minimize or transfer risks as they emerge.
As much as never experiencing a cyber attack is the ideal situation for manufacturing organizations, unfortunately, it is not the reality. Cybersecurity professionals need to ensure that they are not solely focused on defense, but also on building proactive resilience in the event of a cyber attack. This is especially critical for manufacturing organizations where downtime has significant, and often long-lasting, financial impact on the business. X-Analytics can support this.
For example, an organization using X-Analytics to manage their cyber risk faced a cyber attack in 2024, instead of panicking, X-Analytics allowed them to lean on their cyber resilience. They understood their exposure, had limited it where they could and had ensured their cyber insurance covered the rest. So instead of trying to scramble their financial ducks in a row during a time of crisis, they were able to focus on what truly mattered - their customers. After the event, they recovered quickly, with minimal financial damage and the CISO not only kept their job but was promoted. This perfectly illustrates the importance of cyber resilience in achieving success through effective cyber risk management.
Overcoming these challenges requires a strategic, data-driven approach to cybersecurity. X-Analytics offers solutions designed to simplify and enhance cyber risk management for manufacturers, enabling them to better understand, prioritize, and mitigate risks. Here's how X-Analytics supports manufacturing organizations in strengthening their cybersecurity posture:
Manufacturing organizations can set up X-Analytics in less than an hour and start benefiting from immediate insights into their current cybersecurity posture and how to strengthen it.
X-Analytics is built with an incredibly intuitive user interface, so less time is spent figuring out how to get the most out of the platform and users can focus on achieving business clarity on the effectiveness of their cyber risk management approach.
Successful cyber risk management can be achieved by adopting a data-driven approach. X-Analytics presents cyber risk in business friendly economic terms, allowing manufacturing organizations to prioritize and implement the risk mitigation actions that will deliver the greatest risk reducing value for their business.
X-Analytics supports manufacturers in achieving compliance with NIST CSF 2.0, ISO 27001 and other industry-specific regulations.
There isn’t a single point-in-time solution or silver bullet to manufacturing cybersecurity – organizations need to adopt a holistic approach that goes beyond compliance to achieve a robust and resilient cyber risk posture. X-Analytics is key to enabling this.
As the manufacturing cyber risk landscape evolves, cyber risk strategies need to be resilient and flexible enough to keep up. X-Analytics empowers organizations to understand their current resilience and adapt their approach as necessary and monitor their progress over time in light of new developments.
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