For the past four years, manufacturing has been the #1 targeted industry for cybersecurity attacks. As digital transformation continues to redesign the industry, manufacturers integrate more and more connected platforms and devices across their facilities—and the risks posed by threat actors grow in tandem.
Although nothing can truly eliminate threats to cybersecurity, we can stay educated and execute best practices to help stay prepared and mitigate risks. Protecting your manufacturing operations is as much about safeguarding connected systems and the data they generate as it is about safety, quality, and uptime.
At Parsec, we integrate cybersecurity best practices into every aspect of our business. TrakSYS adheres to modern cybersecurity standards and protocols, including secure data handling, user authentication, role-based access control, and encrypted communications—all to ensure the safety and integrity of your operational data.
Table of Contents
Cybersecurity vs. Information Security
While information security is nothing new, cybersecurity is a more recent and pressing topic.
Information security is a broader discipline concerned with protecting all types of digital and physical data from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, and destruction. This practice includes protecting everything from process documents and batch records to supplier contracts and quality reports. Ultimately, information security aims to preserve data confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
Cybersecurity, on the other hand, is a subset of information security, focused on protecting connected digital systems, networks, data, and infrastructure from cyber threats.
Cybersecurity is more important than ever in manufacturing; it helps teams address the challenges of utilizing new interconnected solutions without hindering their effectiveness. From individual IIoT devices to industrial control systems, like enterprise resource planning (ERP) and manufacturing execution systems (MES), they all need to be safeguarded from cyber threats.
While both types of security are critical for modern manufacturing, the growing overlap makes it vital for manufacturers to understand their organization’s specific cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities.
Common Risks and Vulnerabilities
As digital transformation initiatives mature, so to does an organization’s attack surface, creating more opportunities for threat actors to access and exploit sensitive data.
Common risks modern manufacturers face include:
Ransomware & Malware Attacks:
The perpetrators of these attacks infiltrate a network through a weak point, compromising data, halting production, damaging equipment, and/or locking down access to critical platforms and control systems. Attackers ultimately seek to exploit downtime sensitivity—the longer production is halted, the more likely manufacturers are to meet ransom demands.
While these may be on the decline in other industries, in recent years, threat actors have exploited legacy industry technology to launch a significant number of malware attacks against manufacturing organizations.
Supply Chain Vulnerabilities:
A compromised supplier or vendor can become an unintentional gateway into your operations, creating entry points for malware and other types of cyberattacks.
Unfortunately, third-party hardware and software solutions can often be a blind spot in manufacturers’ cybersecurity strategies. Maintaining clear visibility across all vendors, integrations, and solutions is critical to a holistic approach to mitigating threats.
IT/OT Convergence Risks:
Merging information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) brings important systems together to allow for real-time data exchange. This strategic shift empowers manufacturers to make better decisions, operate more efficiently, and stay competitive in an evolving landscape. However. This convergence can also create additional security gaps.
For example, legacy OT networks can lack security controls and protocols found in modern IT solutions. This creates a mismatch, leaving a gap for cybercriminals to exploit and gain control over both connected solutions.Insider Threats & Data Misuse:
Cybersecurity is not a purely external threat. Anyone from a careless contractor to a well-meaning, uninformed operator can expose sensitive data.
Such internal incidents are often due to weak access controls, generic logins, lack of training, and overprivileged user accounts. Login audits and preparing your employees with proper training and two-factor authentication can be critical to maintaining data security.
Data Integrity Risks:
In a connected, digitalized manufacturing environment, insights are only as powerful and accurate as the data behind them. If data is incomplete, compromised, altered, or otherwise manipulated, it can have catastrophic downstream impacts.
Unsecured data streams have the chance to be intercepted and manipulated by bad actors, and gaps in traceability can make finding the root of a security incident incredibly difficult.
Which and how many of these risks affect your organization will vary depending on size, company structure, legacy software, and more. Organization leaders must understand their unique cybersecurity threat landscape and protect themselves accordingly.
Key Cybersecurity Standards, Protocols, and Practices
To the benefit of all, cybersecurity standards and best practices have begun to surface. Although standards are ever evolving to meet the changing threat landscape, here are some models and practices that should be considered for foundational cybersecurity resilience:
Industry Standards
Whether imposed by government entities or regulatory agencies, there are several cybersecurity standards that manufacturers should be aware of:
| Standard | What it Means |
| NIST Cybersecurity Framework (NIST CSF) | A high-level, widely adopted framework designed to aid cybersecurity risk management based on five core functions: identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover. Given its flexibility and capacity to scale, the NIST CSF is a frequently used cybersecurity roadmap for manufacturers of any size. |
| NIST SP 800-82 | A more specific standard from the NIST, this guide provides tailored cybersecurity best practices for industrial control systems (ICS) like SCADA, DCS, or PLC. It emphasizes the importance of segmentation, monitoring, and secure remote access. |
| ISO/IEC 27001 | An international standard that outlines protocols for establishing, implementing, and maintaining an information security management system (ISMS). This is not specific to manufacturing but helps guarantee that organizations protect their data’s confidentiality, integrity, and availability. |
| ISA/IEC 62443 | A series of standards developed specifically for industrial automation and control systems (IACS). It provides standard roles and responsibilities for asset owners, system integrators, and vendors to aid in the development of secure-by-design manufacturing environments. |
| Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) | Created by the U.S. Department of Defense, CMMC provides manufacturers with a tiered model for assessing their cybersecurity maturity and identifying areas for improvement. |
Protocols and Policies
The above industry standards each provide their suggestions for protocols and best practices. But no matter which cybersecurity standards your organization follows, here are some key features to consider when choosing software solutions:
| Feature | What it Does |
| End-to-End Encryption | Encryption ensures data protection as it moves across IT and OT systems. This helps prevent the interception and exploitation of data as it’s transported through a connected infrastructure. |
| Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) | User access to data is controlled entirely based on specific roles, which allows manufacturers to control access on a granular level and minimize insider risk and threats of exposure. |
| Audit Trails | Teams should maintain audit trails, tracking which users accessed which data, what they used it for, and if they made any changes. This is critical for incident response, forensic analysis, and regulatory audits. |
| Network Segmentation | Separating IT and OT environments into smaller connected networks allows teams to close off connectivity and prevent lateral movement in the event of a breach. This limits the attack scope and enables stronger monitoring capabilities. |
| Patch and Update Management | Ensuring that all systems are up to date with the latest security fixes helps reduce risks from known vulnerabilities and keeps all parts of a manufacturer’s connected infrastructure protected. |
| Security Awareness Training | Manufacturers must educate their teams, from the production floor to the C-suite, on cybersecurity risks and how to deter them. This helps reinforce each party’s role in maintaining security and fosters a cybersecurity-forward culture. |
The Role of TrakSYS in Secure Manufacturing
While TrakSYS is not a dedicated cybersecurity solution itself, it can play a significant role in supporting cybersecurity within manufacturing environments by aligning with leading standards and best practices, including support for RBAC, encrypted communications, and secure data handling.
By acting as a secure bridge between IT and OT systems, TrakSYS provides the controls, user authentication, and audit trails that manufacturers need for building a secure infrastructure. This helps organizations that use TrakSYS connect their operations while maintaining data security, integrity, and traceability.
Here are some TrakSYS features that contribute to a well-maintained cybersecurity strategy:
Secure Access Controls
TrakSYS provides secure, function-level access control mechanisms. This ensures that only authorized personnel can access or alter sensitive data, which is critical for protecting against unauthorized changes or data breaches. This aligns with regulatory requirements such as EU GMP Annex 11 and supports best practices for data security.
Data Integrity and Audit Trails
TrakSYS maintains comprehensive audit trails and electronic records, which are essential for compliance and cybersecurity. These features help detect unauthorized access or changes and provide traceability for all actions within the system.
Integration with IT Security Policies
TrakSYS is designed to integrate with existing IT infrastructure and security protocols. It supports secure communication via HTTPS, OPC-UA, and MQTT. It can be configured to comply with corporate firewall and network security requirements, whether deployed on-premises or in the cloud.
Cloud-Ready Security
TrakSYS leverages hardened user security and access controls and can support secure cloud database platforms like Amazon RDS and Azure SQL. This ensures that data remains protected even when accessed remotely.
Regulatory Compliance
By supporting compliance with standards such as 21 CFR Part 11, ISO 13485, and others, TrakSYS helps manufacturers meet the cybersecurity requirements embedded in these regulations, including secure electronic records and change control management
Conclusion
Ultimately, cybersecurity needs to be a central pillar of the manufacturing industry’s increasingly digital operations. Manufacturers can protect their data, people, and production by understanding evolving security risks, adopting industry standards, and keeping teams informed—all without compromising their agility or efficiency.
TrakSYS is crafted with today’s best practices in mind, so your organization can choose an MES that invites minimal risk into your operations.
Ready to learn more about how TrakSYS works within your existing cybersecurity program? Contact us today.
FAQ
Why is manufacturing the most targeted industry for cyberattacks?
How does IT/OT convergence create cybersecurity risks?
What is the difference between cybersecurity and information security in manufacturing?
How does TrakSYS support secure manufacturing practices?
TrakSYS supports secure operations by offering features like role-based access control, encrypted communications, audit trails, and integration with secure IT infrastructures. It’s not a cybersecurity tool itself, but it aligns with cybersecurity best practices to help manufacturers operate safely in a connected environment.