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Protecting Against Digital Disruption

October 1, 2024
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It’s not possible to completely safeguard operations from cyberthreats. Simply put, in today’s interconnected manufacturing landscape, absolute security is not feasible. Even if a company were to disconnect entirely from the internet, the risk of a breach remains if physical access is available to malicious actors or their associates.

The advent of cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP), digital transformation and Industry 4.0 solutions has revolutionized manufacturing. These innovations create efficiencies, enhance customer engagement and provide business intelligence that significantly improves operations and profitability—benefits analog systems cannot match. However, this increased digitization also amplifies the risk to manufacturers’ data and operations.

Research consistently shows that every company, regardless of size, faces the risk of cyberattacks. Leadership often assumes their data isn’t valuable to outsiders, but cyber criminals disagree. They see value in all data and aim to exploit it, potentially holding companies ransom for their own information. This data isn’t limited to financial records; it can include confidential customer information, product specifications, engineering drawings, process data, quality-control results and more.

A recent survey of more than 200 manufacturers conducted by Wipfli reveals a startling statistic: Nearly half of the respondents experienced three or more network breaches in the past year alone. This frequency of attacks can be overwhelming for leadership teams and IT departments.