May 2019

| INTERVIEWS & REPORTS | www.smartmachinesandfactories.com May 2019 | 45 | I n March of this year, the global operations of the Norwegian aluminium and energy producer, Norsk Hydro, were hit by a ransomware cyber-attack that paralysed parts of the company’s business and led to losses amounting to more than $40m. Although most of its systems were operating again within a week, some were still not back to full capacity a month after the attack. Rather than paying the hackers to unlock its files, Norsk Hydro restored them from backup files. Also in March, one of America’s largest beverage manufacturers, Arizona Beverages, was the victim of a ransomware attack that knocked out more than 200 of its servers and networked computers. Unlike Norsk Hydro, its backup systems hadn’t been configured correctly, so the company had to bring in expensive consultants to retrieve the data and restore its operations – a task that cost “hundreds of thousands” of dollars and took several weeks to complete. Then, last month, Aebi Schmidt, a Swiss manufacturer of airport maintenance and road-cleaning vehicles, was reportedly targeted by a similar ransomware attack affecting is operations worldwide. These cases represent the tip of the iceberg. Many victims of cyber-attacks never go public about the intrusions into their electronic systems. According to a recent report from the cyber-analyst Malwarebytes, cyber- A series of major cyber-attacks on manufacturing enterprises has highlighted the extreme and growing risks that such attacks pose. Contributing editor Tony Sacks has been reading a new report that looks at how the interconnected nature of smart factories makes them particularly vulnerable – especially because many manufacturers still rely on outdated versions of Windows, which are no longer receiving security updates. Cyber-attacks on smart factories are on the rise