Manufacturing

“Industry 4.0 is revolutionising the way organisations manufacture, improve and distribute their products. As manufacturers strive to keep pace with adopting new technologies, their OT environments are undergoing rapid digital transformation.”

Cyber Security Challenges in Manufacturing

Industry 4.0 brings benefits like increased automation, process improvements and new efficiencies—but also exposes critical OT to security vulnerabilities and new attack vectors for cybercriminals.

Traditionally, OT environments were isolated, using proprietary industrial protocols and custom hardware/software, resulting in limited exposure. Today, convergence with mainstream technologies and loss of air gapping from IT networks means inadequate security measures pose critical risks.

Threat actors have noticed: ICS/OT malware such as Industroyer, Triton and Incontroller demonstrate increasingly sophisticated capabilities, causing serious industrial incidents.

Situational Awareness

Perception (What’s happening?)

An expanding and growing attack surface—driven by convergence, connectivity, geographic and organizational complexity, plus a general lack of OT risk management—increases exposure.
Connecting OT to IoT and IT devices elevates vulnerabilities once deemed insignificant due to lack of external connectivity.
System obsolescence and low OT cyber awareness among staff further compound the risk.

Comprehension (Why does it matter?)

While OT cyber security is improving, many manufacturing plants still have gaps. The rapid increase in connected devices exponentially raises the attack surface and risk posture.
Threat actors can exploit these gaps to gain unauthorized access to IT and OT, tamper with production systems and data, causing downtime and integrity failures that disrupt business operations.

Manufacturing Risk Management

For organisations with no or limited OT risk management, we recommend a holistic, two-phase programme:

Phase 1 – Risk Identification & Prioritization
Identify the most critical OT functions (e.g. assembly lines, robots, MES), and assess the potential impact of cyber events. Leverage system custodians and engineers to map realistic attack paths—covering technical architecture, user access, third-party scope, supply-chain factors and physical security.

Phase 2 – OT Cybersecurity Framework (OT-CSF)
Establish a formal OT-CSF with policies, procedures and playbooks aligned to:

ISA/IEC 62443
NIST CSF
NERC-CIP
ISO/IEC 27001/27002/27019

Keep it realistic—overly complex controls get ignored. At a minimum, include:

Formal governance model (RACI)
End-to-end operating model
Regulatory compliance mapping
Asset inventory
Network architecture documentation
Incident response plan
Workforce training & awareness
Procedural controls (access management, change control, backups)
Basic performance monitoring & reporting

As OT cyber maturity grows, supplement with:

Internal assurance & self-assessments
External audits
Third-party/supplier cyber clauses
Network & threat monitoring solutions
Asset monitoring & vulnerability detection
Privileged Access Management (PAM)

Finally, ensure adequate budgets, in-house skills, supplier support and governance to sustain your OT cyber programme. This focus reduces vulnerabilities and builds resilience against threats and human error.