Manufacturing Industry Is the Most Attacked by Cybercriminals

The manufacturing industry is the most attacked by cybercriminals for the third straight year. Writing in Industry Week, Michelle Alvarez points out that the manufacturers’ low tolerance for downtime is made-to-order leverage for extortion. Alvarez is part of IBM’s X-Force Strategic Threat Analysis team, which ranks economic sectors for attack frequency, and issues an annual Threat Intelligence Report.

In 2023, more than a quarter of all security incidents were aimed at manufacturers. Malware, primarily ransomware, accounted for most of the incidents. According to the report, the vast majority of those incidents could have been mitigated with patching, multi-factor authentication, or least-privilege principles.

Cyber-extortionists look for easy targets. In the U.S., 42 percent of cyberattacks in 2023 were executed by simply logging in through valid accounts. The Report notes a massive rise in infostealing malware designed to gather credentials for emails, social media, and messaging apps.

According to Alvarez, “credential harvesting” is likely to worsen as cybercriminals begin employing generative AI for identity-based attacks, putting the technology to work on the compromised data they’ve collected to identify the best targets for an attack. 

Alvarez calls it critical that manufacturers understand the tactics of cybercriminals, and strengthen cyber preparedness. She has some suggestions. Frequent stress tests for potential exposures and the development of incident-response plans are first on the list. Stress tests conducted last year revealed that identification and authentication failures such as weak password policies were the second-most observed security risk.

Enforced multi-factor authentication is a must. Strong password policies should include the use of passkeys and hardened system configurations to make accessing credentials more difficult.

Leveraging AI-enabled behavioral analytics and biometrics is increasingly useful as a form of verification. Behavioral analytics, i.e. typing speed and keystrokes, can verify that a user is legitimate. AI-powered technologies can also detect signs of compromised credentials and other malicious behavior.