Cyberattacks on industrial facilities cost companies millions
A new study by a cybersecurity solutions provider finds that 89 percent of companies in the power, oil and gas, and manufacturing sectors were affected by cyberattacks in the last 12 months. The average damage caused by these attacks was €2.6 million.
Cybersecurity solutions provider Trend Micro surveyed 900 industrial cybersecurity managers in Germany, the U.S. and Japan from the manufacturing, oil and gas and electricity sectors for a study. Fifty-two percent of the companies surveyed said they "always" or "usually" respond to a cyberattack that has occurred against industrial facilities with improvements to their cybersecurity infrastructure. Nevertheless, not all companies still have sufficient resources or knowledge to protect themselves against future threats. As a result, 48 percent only "sometimes" or "hardly" respond.
Cyber attacks on industrial plants with large financial damage
For companies whose OT (operational technology) and industrial control systems were affected by cyberattacks, the average financial loss amounts to around 2.6 million euros, according to the company's own figures. The oil and gas industry suffered the greatest loss. For 89 percent of the companies, the supply chain was also affected in addition to core operations, so that they had to temporarily reduce deliveries or change their delivery planning.
Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of respondents said they had been affected by cyberattacks on their industrial environments as many as six times or more over the course of a year.
Increased threat potential
In addition, the study by Trend Micro comes to the following conclusions:
- 40 percent of companies were already unable to fend off the initial attack.
- The top two factors for improving cybersecurity levels are future investments in cloud systems (28 percent) and the implementation of 5G campus networks (26 percent).
- Compared to IT security, OT security is less mature in terms of risk-based threat prevention.
The integration of cloud computing, edge computing and 5G into mixed IT and OT environments has fundamentally changed industrial systems and processes. Enterprises should stay ahead of this evolution and proactively implement security measures to protect their business assets. Improving risk and threat visibility is an important first step in securing the private network and industrial cloud. "Industrial sites around the world are turning to digitization to drive sustainable growth. However, this has led to a flood of security threats that many companies are not armed against and can cause great damage - both financially and reputationally," said Udo Schneider, IoT Security Evangelist Europe at Trend Micro. "To secure what are now highly interconnected IT and OT environments, enterprises need experienced partners who have the foresight and the right toolbox of solutions."
Source and further information: Trend Micro
