More than one-third of organizations consider cyber risk as the top obstacle to growth.
Courtesy of Boston Scientific
Nearly nine out of 10 industrial security leaders said they believe their companies could contain a cyber incident, and nearly half of those same companies experienced a breach or attack over the past 12 months, according to a report released Tuesday by Rockwell Automation.
More than one-third of industrial firms described cyber risk as the top obstacle to growth.
The report highlights a continued resilience gap in industrial environments, where maintaining operational technology is critical. More than 60% of industrial firms have invested in various security technologies, including asset inventory, intruder detection and secure remote access.
The global study is based on a survey of more than 1,500 manufacturing companies across 17 of the leading industrial nations. The survey, developed by Sepio Research, questioned managers and C-suite executives in multiple industries at organizations with annual revenue between $100 million and $30 billion.
The report shows nearly half of these companies plan to add AI and machine learning to their cybersecurity defenses to boost resilience and efficiency.
A separatebenchmark report out Tuesday from Honeywell Technologiesalso showed a significant gap in OT security readiness. The report, based on responses from more than 600 IT security leaders globally, showed only one in five organizations had complete visibility into their OT assets.
Honeywell officials said a lack of visibility significantly increases the chance of cyberattack and operational disruption.
“Simply put, if organizations don’t have a complete understanding of what devices are connected to their environment, how those devices communicate or who is making changes, they cannot effectively detect, manage or respond to potential issues,” Paul Smith, global portfolio director at Honeywell, told Cybersecurity Dive.
More than half the respondents said their facilities were disrupted over the past 12 months due to a cyberattack. The most serious incidents led to more than 16 hours of downtime and cost their respective firms more than $100,000 per hour, on average.
The reports follow several high-profile cyberattacks in recent months. Boston Scientific reported an attack in late August thatdisrupted order processing and shipping. An internal investigation with CrowdStrike found that a hackergained access to the companythrough a public-facing network device before accessing the firm’s on-premises IT network.
Boston Scientific confirmed on Sept. 9 that itrestored manufacturing, order fulfillmentand shipping capabilities. The company also restored remote monitoring activations for its implantable cardiac devices.
