Life isn't easy for IT security workers these days, and it's even tougher for those who work in the manufacturing sector. Due to the expense and a lack of regulatory stimulus, Manufacturing companies have tended to lag behind the financial, health care and energy industries in the area of information security, even though manufacturers clearly have a lot to lose.
"Manufacturers are amongst the most vulnerable to attack because there is a lot at stake in terms of trade secrets and intellectual property," says Rohyt Belani, managing partner at security consultancy Intrepidus Group. For example, he points to incidents of insider theft of critical documents and drawings for sale or transfer to a competitor (as happened recently when Coca-Cola employees attempted to sell its secret formula to Pepsi).
Manufacturers are also at risk to "phishing" expeditions, in which hackers gain access into proprietary networks to obtain sensitive design data by simply tricking a naive user to divulge passwords or other security information.
Source: Industry Week, http://industryweek.com