Hacker's Choice Manufacturers

Cyber attacks on manufacturing companies on the rise as attackers attempt to steal valuable intellectual property and information.

The manufacturing sector is now one of the most frequently hacked industries, second only to healthcare, a new report says.

Healthcare, which has a wealth of exploitable information within electronic records, moved into the top spot in the rankings, replacing financial services, which dropped to third place in IBM X-Force Research’s new 2016 Cyber Security Intelligence Index. Manufacturing rose from third place in last year’s report, which offers a high-level overview of the major threats to IBM’s clients’ businesses worldwide over the past year.

Manufacturing includes automotive, electronics, textile, and pharmaceutical companies. Automotive manufacturers were the top targeted manufacturing sub-industry, accounting for almost 30% of the total attacks against the manufacturing industry in 2015. Chemical manufacturers were the second-most targeted sub-industry in 2015, according to IBM.

Many manufacturing companies are behind the curve in security because they have not been held to compliance standards like financial services has, with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards and The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, or in the case of the healthcare industry, with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, Lutgen says. “Because of that, they [manufacturers] tend to be a little laxer with security in terms of some other industry verticals.”