Jane Edwards
A new study by Deloitte and the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation has found that 36 percent of manufacturing executives said intellectual property is their top concern when it comes to data security, followed by consumer information and inadvertent personal data disclosures.
Deloitte and MAPI conducted 35 interviews with executives and industry organizations as well as performed an online survey of 225 respondents in partnership with Forbes Insights, Deloitte said Tuesday.
Nearly 40 percent of manufacturing firms experienced cyber attacks over the past year and 38 percent of those impacted said such incidents led to at least $1 million in damages, according to the survey.
“Company leadership needs to understand their comprehensive cyber risk profile to appropriately allocate resources to mitigate risk,†said Stephen Gold, president and CEO of MAPI.
The study showed that 50 percent of surveyed manufacturers said they conduct vulnerability assessments of industrial control systems less than once a month, while 31 percent said they have not performed such evaluation.
Forty percent of corporate executives said they have not integrated connected devices with their companies’ cyber attack response plans.
Manufacturing executives said 46 percent of cyber incidents started within their organizations, while 39 percent originated from external sources and 15 percent from business partners and vendors, according to the study.
The survey also found that phishing and pharming comprised 32 percent of cyber threats that emerged within the company, followed by errors, abuse of information technology platforms and use of mobile devices.
