Cybersecurity defenses found lacking for manufacturers

A report from global cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab, Woburn, Mass., found that in the first half of 2017, manufacturing was the industry most susceptible to cyberthreats, with the industrial control system computers of manufacturers accounting for almost a third of all attacks. In total, Kaspersky Lab detected about 18,000 different modifications of malware on industrial automation systems in the first 6 months of 2017.

Sridhar Kota is the Herrick professor of engineering at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and a director of MForesight: Alliance for Manufacturing Foresight, a manufacturing-centered think tank. He noted several reasons why manufacturers are at special risk for cyberattacks. More than most sectors, manufacturing relies on flows of materials, parts, assemblies, energy, data and people from diverse, changing sources. Supply chains are hyperconnected systems of contractors and customers. Most factory floors run 24 hours a day and include complex combinations of cutting-edge equipment and decades-old machines, making it difficult to test and maintain systems or to rely on existing cybersecurity products and tools.

Sridhar Kota is the Herrick professor of engineering at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and a director of MForesight: Alliance for Manufacturing Foresight. Image courtesy of University of Michigan.

Organizations both inside and outside the U.S. government have been grappling with how to minimize the threat. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology released a 56-page manufacturing profile (available at tinyurl.com/NIST-cyberthreat) in September that’s intended to serve as a road map for managing cybersecurity activities and reducing the risk to manufacturing systems.