Ransomware has emerged as a pervasive threat to manufacturing operations. We have seen plant downtime due to ransomware. Targeted attacks always took down multiple plants at once, so the attacker could extort a high ransom payment.

Manufacturing is one of the most targeted industries, and attacks succeeded even when virus protection software and firewalls were in place, such as those recommended in the IEC 62443 standards. Once installed, organizations must pay attention to their antivirus software and firewall update notices so that they know when there is new ransomware being created.