Today’s manufacturer isn’t short of challenges. Supply chain disruptions and labor shortages are just some of the obstacles it must address. Another is the ever-increasing risk of a cyberattack. In this blog post, we look at what makes the industry vulnerable to attack and offer ways in which manufacturers can embed security and resilience into the employee experience to secure a successful, digital-first future.

In the Cybercriminal Spotlight

Manufacturers are hurtling towards a new era: Industry 4.0. As businesses implement this next industrial revolution, organizations are investing heavily in digital technologies, like cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), automation, and machine learning to revolutionize their operations. But as the adoption of these technologies increases, so do cyberattacks.

Attacks come in many forms, including from competitors who target the intellectual proprietary data that engineers and R&D teams work with. Unfortunately, interconnected supply chains along with remote working have made it easier for competitors to gain access; 69 percent of manufacturing executives say they “face cybersecurity challenges in implementing their digital transformation strategies.”

This has placed manufacturing in an unfavorable position. According to IBM, manufacturing has overtaken financial services to become the most attacked industry, representing 23.2 percent of cyberattacks. Verizon’s 2022 Data Breach Investigations Report highlights that 88 percent of cyberattacks in manufacturing were found to be financially motivated, with system intrusion and basic web application attacks being the most prevalent.

Threatened from the Inside

It’s easy to think cyberattacks are only ever caused by external bad actors. However, as the 2022 Ponemon Cost of Insider Threats: Global Report reveals, insider threat incidents have risen 44 percent over the last two years, with costs per incident up more than a third to $15.38 million. The same report also notes that the cost of credential theft to organizations increased 65 percent, from $2.79 million in 2020 to $4.6 million in 2022.

These insider threats can be traced back to employees, contractors, partners, or third-party vendors. Despite insider threats having risen across all threat profiles, according to Ponemon’s report, 56 percent of incidents experienced by organizations were caused by careless or negligent employees. Verizon describes these incidents as the “human element” in cybersecurity, which is the source of a staggering 82 percent of data breaches.

Learn how manufacturers can thrive in today’s age of agility, and how Citrix can enable a digital-first approach.

How to Secure the Workplace

Fortunately, this isn’t an industry willing to sit back and wait for turmoil to unfold. As Deloitte notes, rising threats are leading the industry to new levels of preparedness — 82 percent of manufacturing executives surveyed expected their organizations to invest more in cybersecurity in 2022, with nearly one quarter budgeting at least 10 percent more than in 2021. Of this spending, 77 percent was to be used for externally managed security services.

Preparing Your 2023 Security Budget

Piling on extra security solutions isn’t a viable option. Many companies turn to virtual private networks (VPNs), virus scans, and mobile management software to provide employees access to sensitive information, particularly for those employees connecting from remote locations on personal devices. However, these solutions tend to slow app performance, leaving workers frustrated and limiting their productivity.

What manufacturers need is a solution that can simplify the lives of employees, while also ensuring strong security. To strike that balance, leaders in cybersecurity are turning to zero trust security models for their IT infrastructure.

These models, or security frameworks, integrate IT systems and allow organizations to isolate access to key data, employing a “never trust, always verify” approach to security, with “just in time, just enough” access to trusted users.

By unifying all security and access control policies in one place, zero trust solutions dramatically decrease the number of attack surfaces vulnerable to inside and outside threats.

Is It Better for Employees?

Engineers and production workers rely heavily on technology to carry out their work. So any security technology implemented must not slow down or hinder the applications, devices, or tools they use.

By replacing cumbersome security scans and VPNs, zero trust helps devices and web apps boot up faster and crash less frequently. This improved technology has a positive impact on the overall employee experience. It is has already been well documented that employees are more engaged when they have devices and apps that perform well and can easily authenticate to access the services they need.

Securing a Future-Ready Workplace

Traditional security solutions are no longer sufficient for today’s interconnected, work-from-anywhere world. With hybrid working, data must flow through foreign networks. That means, to some degree, the internet is the new corporate network, and so a zero trust approach is the only viable option.

It’s time for manufacturers to recognize their vulnerabilities and the large impact human behavior can have on security. With these insights, they can begin to design a secure IT strategy that protects critical company data and employees, while also enabling teams to work productively from anywhere.

Learn more about how manufacturers can thrive in today’s age of agility, and how Citrix can enable a digital-first approach.