Netwrix identifies sector with most cloud attacks

Cybersecurity provider Netwrix has revealed additional insights about the manufacturing sector, drawing from a survey of 1,610 IT and security professionals across 100 countries.

Netwrix survey

The survey indicated that 64% of manufacturing companies experienced a cyber-attack in the past 12 months, in line with the overall average of 68%.

Notably, the manufacturing sector faced a higher number of cloud infrastructure attacks compared to other industries surveyed.

Among manufacturing companies detecting attacks, 85% identified phishing incidents in the cloud, surpassing the 58% average across all industries.

Additionally, 43% faced user account compromise in the cloud, compared to 27% overall.

Moreover, 25% dealt with data theft by hackers in the cloud, in contrast to the 15% average for all organisations.

“Cloud infrastructure a lucrative target for attackers”

Dirk Schrader, VP of Security Research, Netwrix explained: “The manufacturing sector relies heavily on the cloud to work with their supply chain in real-time.

“This makes their cloud infrastructure a lucrative target for attackers — infiltrating it enables them to move laterally and potentially compromise other linked organisations.”

Ilia Sotnikov, Security Strategist, Netwrix added: “The attack surface in the cloud is always expanding, so it’s critical for manufacturing companies to adopt a defence in depth approach.

“First, they must rigorously enforce the principle of least privilege to limit access to sensitive data, which ideally includes just in time access to eliminate unnecessary entry points for adversaries.

“They also need to gain deep visibility into when and how critical data in the cloud is being used so that IT teams can promptly spot potential threats.

“Finally, they need to be prepared to minimise the damage from incidents by having a comprehensive response strategy that is regularly exercised and updated.”