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What should manufacturers know about cybersecurity threats? NAM COO Todd Boppell recently appeared on Mandiant’s “Defender’s Advantage Podcast” to explain how cyber criminals are targeting manufacturers today and what companies can do to protect themselves. Here’s some of his advice.

The threat today: While cyberthreats are nothing new, in recent years there has been a sea change, Boppell said.

• “I think what’s really changed in the past five years, especially—it probably started in the past 10, but it’s massively accelerated—is that cybercrime as a business model is on the rise,” he explained.
• “A lot of the bad guys, whether their motivations are political or purely economic, have realized that ransomware and other forms of pure disruption are sometimes just as helpful or just as lucrative as stealing any sort of intellectual property.”

Manufacturing as a target: Manufacturers get victimized by ransomware attacks “because manufacturing is one of the least tolerant industries of any sort of downtime,” Boppell continued.

• “Over the past five years, manufacturing was always in the top three [sectors targeted by cyber criminals], typically with medical and financial services … but really over the past 18 to 24 months, all the data I have seen says that manufacturing has jumped to number one and has stayed there.”

What small businesses need to know: Small businesses may believe that they are beneath notice for cyber criminals, but that’s not the case, said Boppell.

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