What Lies Beneath a Cyber Breach: Part 1

The manufacturing industry is under attack and no one's immune to the bad actors—known as hackers.

The manufacturing industry is under attack and no one's immune to the bad actors—known as hackers.
The manufacturing industry is under attack and no one's immune to the bad actors—known as hackers.

All across the U.S., manufacturers are silently struggling with an invisible force that threatens the livelihood of their businesses. This dark entity slips into an organization—often undetected—to steal passwords and intellectual property. Sometimes it demands money in exchange for unlocking enterprise servers. Sometimes it maliciously shuts down industrial machines in an attempt to cause physical harm, like an explosion. Other times, it’s not interested in the immediate prey, but has its sights set on a bigger victim, and therefore uses a company as a gateway into their partner networks.

It is the hackers of the world wreaking havoc on unsuspecting organizations. And it is not just large multinational manufacturers that are targets, but everyone in the supply chain.

Bad words like “Stuxnet,” “Triton,” “WannaCry,” and “NotPetya” have been headline news over the last few years indicating that we’ve entered the era of cyberwarfare, and data is the weapon. In this new threat landscape, we’ve seen nation states, criminal gangs and “hactivists” navigate cyber channels to manipulate enterprise databases, critical infrastructure and industrial control environments. And, it’s difficult to stop, despite the decades of IT experience a company—or government—may have.

“Security in a digital world is still so hard,” says General Michael Hayden, a retired U.S. Air Force four-star general and the former Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Hayden was addressing attendees in the oil and gas industry during a keynote presentation at the 2018 PAS OptICS security conference earlier this year. But cybersecurity impacts every segment of the manufacturing industry. “We have a lot of bright people working on this problem, but the faster we go, the more behind we get. We don’t seem to be getting ahead of it.”

In order to protect our country and our companies, General Hayden says government and corporate America have to work together, and that means taking personal responsibility for protecting your business. It starts, he says, just like any other military exercise, by mitigating risk.

Combatting cyberwarfare


Hayden, who once held the role of the Commander of the Air Intelligence Agency and Director of the Joint Command and Control Warfare Center, uses a classic risk equation used in combat: Risk = threat x vulnerability x consequence.

Medical Device Innovations Report
Cutting-edge packaging technologies are transforming the medical device sector in PMMI’s “Innovation in Medical Device” report, featuring advanced materials, smart solutions, and evolving regulations. Editors share insights from nearly 300 PACK EXPO booth visits—each product deemed new and truly innovative—alongside video demonstrations of the equipment and materials on display.
Learn More
Medical Device Innovations Report
Pharmaceutical Innovations Report
Discover the latest breakthrough packaging technologies shaping the pharmaceutical sector. This report dives into cutting-edge innovations, from smart containers that enhance patient safety to eco-friendly materials poised to transform the industry’s sustainability practices. All from PACK EXPO. Learn how forward-thinking strategies are driving efficiency and redefining what’s possible in pharma packaging.
Learn More
Pharmaceutical Innovations Report