Cybersecurity Awareness for Manufacturing

Manufacturers are interesting businesses. Not only do they depend on manpower and technology to produce goods, they also rely on IT to power processes, manage their supply chain, and enhance organizational efficiency. With October being Cybersecurity Awareness month, we thought we’d take a look at what a manufacturer’s cybersecurity efforts look like. 

Costs of a Data Breach

Before we go into depth about the manufacturers, we need to get across just how devastating a data breach can be for your business. Here are some interesting statistics from a study of 2018’s data breaches conducted by IBM:

• The average cost of a data breach: $3.86 million 
• The average cost per lost or stolen record as a result of a data breach: $148
• The average cost of lost business after a data breach: $4.2 million
• The average cost of notifying individuals that their data has been compromised: $740,000

With this information, you know that protecting your business’ data and infrastructure is imperative to the long-term success of your business. 

Manufacturing Cybersecurity

Manufacturing is the second most attacked industry. For the manufacturer it can get a little tricky since it seemingly depends on several different entities and departments to make the finished products. Here are four ways that modern manufacturers can go about guarding against today’s cybersecurity threats. 

Protect Your Company’s Intellectual Property

Intellectual property is one of the most stolen entities in modern computing. As a result, companies looking to protect their property against outside threats need to do what many organizations would do while protecting personally identifiable information. The first would be to limit access. A comprehensive access control system will go a long way toward keeping knowledge on a need-to-know basis.

Prioritize Training

Every employee that has some type of access to your business’ information systems have to be trained with the requisite knowledge necessary to properly protect the company’s network and data. Some topics that should be touched on include how to identify phishing, the dangers of unauthorized access, and the dangers the organization faces if this strategy isn’t successfully maintained. 

Monitoring and Maintenance

In order to keep your data secure, having your systems and data monitored and managed is important. Keeping systems up to date with security patches and new features can help by closing vulnerabilities. This helps keep intrusion to a minimum.

Partner Accountability

Network security is always a joint venture. It requires coordination and collaboration. Your vendors, suppliers, and other entities that you interact with normally may work with you, but they don’t work for you. You have to understand which partners could possibly be a liability to your cybersecurity efforts and demand that they show the accountability needed to help keep your business from being inundated with threats. 

If your manufacturing enterprise is having difficulty with keeping its information systems secure, call the professionals at SMART Services today at 586 258-0650 .