Growing cyber security threat flagged for manufacturers
Trade body Make UK releases results of an industry survey.
Make UK research reveals:
- 30% of manufacturers experienced a cyber incident in the past 12 months, either directly or through their supply chain.
- Where cyber incidents had an impact, production downtime and increased operational costs were the most common consequences.
- 31% of manufacturers affected by supplier cyber-attacks reported delays to customer deliveries, while 31% reported reduced production capacity.
- 67% of manufacturers have cyber insurance, but 17% do not and 16% are unsure whether they are covered.
- 51% have incident response plans and 45% have assigned senior leadership responsibility for cyber security.
Make UK says the findings underline how digital disruption can rapidly become physical disruption in a modern factory.
With manufacturers becoming more reliant on connected machinery, robotics, enterprise systems, suppliers and remote access tools, cyber-attacks can quickly affect uptime, safety, customer orders and wider supply chain resilience.
The most common impacts were delays to customer deliveries (31%) and reduced production capacity (31%), while almost a quarter reported supplier delivery delays (23%) or shortages of components and materials (23%).
The research has led Make UK to urge companies in the manufacturing sector to prioritise cyber security.
The report warns that cyber resilience must be treated as part of operational performance and calls for manufacturers to strengthen basic cyber hygiene, improve supplier assurance, protect operational technology and ensure cyber risk has clear senior ownership, with nearly a third of firms either lacking cyber insurance or unsure whether they are covered.
Make UK says manufacturers should prioritise practical steps including board-level ownership of cyber risk, employee training, incident response planning, patch management, supplier assurance and protection for operational technology systems.
Within this context Yorkshire manufacturers are being offered fully funded cyber security support to combat the growing threat from attacks capable of bringing production to a standstill.
The £400,000 government funding comes through a Made Smarter cyber security programme for SME manufacturers across Yorkshire.
The pilot is being delivered with Sheffield Hallam University, offering fully funded support ranging from basic cyber awareness through to Cyber Essentials, Cyber Essentials Plus and ISO 27001.
The programme launches in September and could help shape how cyber security support is delivered through Made Smarter across England.
Nina Gryf, Innovation and Digitalisation Lead at Make UK, says, ‘Cyber-attacks are no longer abstract technical events for manufacturers. They are showing up on the factory floor through downtime, higher costs, delayed orders and pressure on supply chains. In a connected industrial economy, a digital weakness can quickly become a production problem.’
