Recently, cyber criminals have become more focused on intellectual property due to its prolonged benefits, resulting in them targeting industries such as the manufacturing sector, which is the third most targeted industry for cyber-crime.
The manufacturing industry is also not obligated to report breaches unlike the healthcare, financial, and retail sectors, therefore it is possible that there are a lot of cyber-attacks that have gone unreported, which potentially increases the risk of cyber-crime
Manufacturing organisations usually receive correspondence containing confidential information such as contracts, patents, drawings and additional private content, which must be protected. The problem is that a lot of manufacturing companies underestimate the threat of cyber-attacks, and therefore do not implement the necessary cyber security and protection that is necessary to safeguard their confidential information.