The manufacturing industry is constantly evolving. Today, big data and technologies such as cloud, IoT, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) are powering smart manufacturing designed to produce more things better and quicker. As manufacturing enterprises accelerate modernization through factory automation and emerging tech, their data is also more vulnerable to ransomware and other cybersecurity threats.
Here are three ways manufacturers can benefit from modern data security and management to improve their cyber security posture and productivity.
1. Strengthen data protection
Manufacturing differentiation comes from both intellectual property and operation efficiencies. That makes safeguarding the designs and drawings that manufacturers produce as well as the data flowing from technologies on factory floors equally important. Legacy backup products that include a patchwork of siloed infrastructure and complex management are no longer suitable for modern manufacturing.
From aerospace to pharmaceutical to technology, leading manufacturers need to modernize legacy backup and recovery of their data, systems, and applications for these key reasons:
- Accelerated hybrid cloud adoption requires the protection of different data sources and finding more affordable ways to save data (i.e., cloud-based retention)
- The introduction of smart factory models driven by 5G generates more and more data that teams must use to derive insights for better decision making
- Process reinvention driven by emerging tech (e.g., automation, big data, IoT, edge, etc.) is making it impractical to manually apply the right policies at the right time to protect enterprise data
- The inclusion of advanced manufacturing tech such as robotics, simulators, and augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) is creating a complex operating environment that demands more digitization and simplified data management
A Frost & Sullivan report notes that manufacturing-related IoT devices will grow 3X to become nine billion in 2025, up from three billion in 2020. That can be a thriving target for bad actors and a compelling challenge for manufacturing enterprises to secure these endpoints as well as the data they generate.
The question for manufacturing leaders today isn’t whether or not to get on the digital bandwagon, but how to embrace transformation by intelligently leveraging insights from all of the data they are protecting and embracing a comprehensive data security and management strategy. A significant part of the value related to digital transformation relies on manufacturers’ ability to consolidate, protect, analyze, and make decisions based on real-time information acquired from intelligent and connected things.
2. Boost cyber resilience
In addition to data protection, manufacturing IT teams are looking at modern backup and recovery of their data, systems, and applications as the best way to improve cyber resilience.
Manufacturing was second among the most attacked industries by cyber criminals with one-in-five manufacturing companies in the U.S. and U.K. a victim of cyberattacks in 2020, according to an xforce survey.
Manufacturers recognize they need to do a better job of responding to increasing ransomware threats and operational inefficiencies due to growing data volumes. Although the focus on data security has increased, the reality is that manufacturers are no more secure than a decade ago with legacy patchwork of point products.
Manufacturers need a better way to defend their data against ransomware attackers with a platform approach to data security and management, including ways to:
- Reduce their attack surfaces
- Recover all types of data with confidence
- Restore data rapidly and at scale
A faster and more resilient data security and management platform can help manufacturers fortify their environments and improve their response strategies.
3. Improve business continuity and productivity
Today’s manufacturing IT teams need to drive business insights from all of their data to optimize for higher levels of output and product quality while reducing overall waste. An intelligent business continuity strategy, bolstered by comprehensive data security and management, empowers manufacturers to minimize downtime as well as overcome their:
- Inability to harness control over and insights from rapidly increasing data
- Immature or non-existent tools for managing mixed cloud environments
- Limited pool of talent with required skill sets for modern data security and management
- Challenges securing many IoT sensors and the data they generate plus the systems that rely on them
Manufacturing IT teams need a proactive strategy based on Zero Trust security principles to preserve their brand reputations and keep their businesses running.
Why Cohesity?
The Cohesity Data Cloud is a unified platform for securing, managing, and extracting value from enterprise data. It empowers manufacturers to strengthen data protection, improve business continuity, and minimize the risk of ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure.
Cohesity teams with the world’s leading cybersecurity and services companies such as BigID, Cisco, CrowdStrike, CyberArk, Okta, Palo Alto Networks, Securonix, Splunk, and Tenable to ensure our customers are better equipped to defend and recover from cyberattacks. In addition, Cohesity partners with leading global system integrators such as HCL Technologies, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, and others who bring transformation capabilities and domain expertise in manufacturing to help customers accelerate their digital transformation journeys with modern data security and management.
Our integrated solutions are designed to help manufacturers:
- Maximize production with simplified data management, near-zero downtime, and intelligent insights
- Boost cyber resiliency by defending data for critical supply chain processes from ransomware attacks and providing security to increasing IoT systems
- Optimize operations by easing IT management burdens and achieving greater visibility into unstructured data
When Sensirion wanted to modernize its legacy backup solution to save money and achieve high performance, Cohesity delivered a scalable, enterprise solution that gave the Swiss-based digital microsensor and sensor systems manufacturer faster backups and superior restore functionality. Native integration with its existing Pure Storage environment was a huge bonus for Sensirion as it plans for cloud integration and disaster recovery from the cloud in the future.
Learn more about how Cohesity can help your manufacturing business devise a comprehensive data protection, cyber resilience, and business continuity strategy.
