Why manufacturers need cyber risk protection

​With the number of data breaches increasing every year, it’s not a question of if your business will suffer a breach, but when. The threat affects companies of all sizes and in every industry, including manufacturers.

In fact, manufacturers are one of the most susceptible to cyber threats. According to a Kaspersky Labs report, manufacturers’ computers accounted for about one-third of all attacks as sophisticated attackers are after intellectual property.

​Whether malicious or accidental, when a cyber event occurs it can expose critical information that businesses are required to protect subject to State and Federal privacy and data breach notification laws. Within the manufacturing industry over 60% of all malicious attacks use cyber espionage of social or phishing attacks as the calling card.

The costs associated with cybercrime are increasing dramatically, not to mention putting the business’, customers, and reputation at risk. All of this can be crippling to companies who have not made cybersecurity part of their annual budget. An article by Varonis reports the following:

• There are over 130 large-scale, targeted breaches in the U.S. per year, and that number is growing by 27 percent per year.
• The average cost of a malware attack on a company is $2.4 million.
• The average cost in time of a malware attack is 50 days.
• Damage related to cybercrime is projected to hit $6 trillion annually by 2021.
• Ransomware attacks are growing more than 350 percent annually.

Cyber risk policies provide coverage to help protect against data breaches and other fast-evolving cyber exposures not covered by standard property and liability policies. These policies respond in multiple ways such as security card data remediation and notification expense, network and information security liability, regulatory defense expenses, crisis management event expenses, and computer program and electronic data restoration expenses.

Manufacturers can no longer ignore the threat. When your business relies on continuous operation, getting shut down due to a cyber-attack is an unacceptable risk.