Almost half of UK manufacturing industry report cyber-attacks

Almost half of businesses in the UK manufacturing industry have reported cyber-attacks, with the UK manufacturing industry described as somewhat of an easy target.

We don’t often see manufacturers in the news for data breaches and cyber-attacks, but this date from a recent study shows that there is a worrying trend of it being a common problem in the industry.

The UK manufacturing industry is reportedly among the least-protected sector in the UK.

Worrying statistics

According to data gleaned from a recent survey, a quarter of over 150 firms surveyed confirmed that they had lost money because of a cyber-attack, or that their business was disrupted as a result of an attack.

Further, almost half of the respondents confirmed that they had been the victim of some form of cyber-attack which shows how rife the problem is in the industry; and this doesn’t include the ones that have gone unnoticed or have not been reported.

This puts the UK manufacturing industry in third-place in terms of the least protection, just behind the government and the finance sector.

Why is it so bad?

It’s believed that UK manufacturing industry businesses simply does not pay enough attention to the dangers of data breaches and cyber-attacks. Many businesses still wrongly assume that it’s the finance sector and banks or insurance services that will be targeted the most, but as ransomware continues to grow, it’s manufacturers who can become easy targets for ransomware attacks where businesses are held to ransom to regain access to their locked-out systems.

Time is money, so if cyber-attackers can cost business time, they’re costing them money as well. We already know that cyber-criminals will not price themselves out of their victims’ budget either. They’re smart, and they often demand just enough to make it far more easier and tempting for a business to stump up the demand as oppose to losing money.

Easy targets are targeted

It seems like a bit of an obvious statement to say that easy targets are targeted, but it’s an incredibly important point. By failing to take heed of the dangers of cyber-attacks, the UK manufacturing industry is simply opening itself up to be an easy target that will be abused.

The other important thing that businesses need to recognise is their duty to protect the people whose data they hold. UK manufacturing business do fall foul of media-reported data breaches; we saw this in the recent Jaguar Land Rover incident that our Data Leak Lawyers are helping people for.

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