U.S. Homeland Security Agency Says Manufacturing Sector At Higher Risk For Cyber Attacks

As the Washington, D.C.-based Hill newspaper reported, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has concluded manufacturing organizations are at a higher risk for cyber-attacks because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

CISA said having more employees work remotely and the increased use of robotics have made the sector more susceptible to security vulnerabilities. The industry also lacks qualified personnel to protect highly technical manufacturing systems, CISA said. Ransomware attacks, where hackers use malware to encrypt files on a device and render any files and the systems that rely on them unusable, have become a particular threat to manufacturing companies.

To address these vulnerabilities, CISA recommended that manufacturing companies develop cybersecurity and operational knowledge on the shop floor and invest in training for security analysts to be capable of remote monitoring of manufacturing environments. Read CISA’s full report here.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has offered six ideas that it recommends all companies deploy to guard against cyberattacks:

• Accelerate safe, robust, and secure use of cloud services.
• Bolster strong identity practices by instructing employees to eliminate bad passwords and enable multi-factor authentication.
• Use a properly configured virtual private network (VPN).
• Use encryption to protect data at rest.
• Have a plan to identify and manage third-party and supply-chain risk.
• Recognize every device on your network, including Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), and ensure security is deployed to the edge.