The manufacturing industry, including the defense industrial base (DIB), is a prime target for sophisticated cyberattacks and espionage. In early March, the Department of Justice indicted a dozen Chinese cyber actors for hacking and selling sensitive data from U.S. critical infrastructure, including DIB networks.
More broadly, at least 80 percent of manufacturing firms have been hit by ransomware in the past year, while phishing attacks rose 80 percent year-over-year in 2024.
These figures illustrate the urgent need for stronger cybersecurity and more effective remediation protocols in manufacturing organizations. Yet, research suggests many remain behind the curve. According to a recent survey, fewer than half of manufacturing companies have taken adequate precautions with regard to cybersecurity, with 13 percent saying they are not prepared at all.
This is despite myriad efforts to ensure sufficient cybersecurity, such as the Department of Defense’s 2024 Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity Strategy which mandates alignment with the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification 2.0 (CMMC), finalized last year.
For manufacturing organizations, CMMC 2.0 presents several daunting challenges, including developing the tools and necessary skillsets to use them as well as establishing a culture that supports incident discovery and response, consistent procedures, record keeping, and reporting. Maintaining CMMC compliance is also costly, but two broad initiatives—incident response playbooks and a culture of security–can help align with the requirements in a cost- and time-effective manner.
Establishing Incident Response Playbooks
Organizations need visibility across operations and the ability to rapidly share mission critical data. Scattered documentation, siloed communication, ambiguous ownership, and ad hoc workstreams are mistake-prone and hinder urgent timelines. Pre-built incident response playbooks can prevent such mistakes that could undermine natural security.
Incident response playbooks establish responsibilities, the chain of command, and how specific incidents are detected, identified, and remediated. This drives standardization and enables immediate, coordinated responses to cyber incidents across decentralized teams, ensuring that critical operations are protected and disruptions minimized.
As manufacturing teams build their playbooks, they must consider who’s involved, when, and how. Detailed templates ensure the right stakeholders—from floor managers to executives—get the right technical information, fast.
Because manufacturing outages often have real-world impacts, these organizations must be able to classify incidents by production impact rather than just generic security levels. This level of detail will streamline triage efforts and support rapid resource allocation and response by level of urgency.
Ideally, playbooks should have built-in task checklists and integrate directly into existing messaging platforms, so everyone knows what’s happening and what to do next. At the same time, playbooks also enable continuous improvement through incident retrospectives, as the only thing worse than suffering a cyber breach is not learning from it.
Fostering a Culture of Security
With playbooks in place, organizations must also foster a culture of security, which is the product of both training and tools. To start, all employees should have a collaborative work environment that seamlessly upholds protections for sensitive data, automatically enforces zero trust policies for users and automatically for all materials, and is reliably secure in the face of interference and attack from 3rd parties.
And, because human error is a factor in most data breaches, training is a great preventative approach to cybersecurity. However, the sheer volume of attacks makes an eventual breach almost inevitable. Having a secure collaboration and workflow platform that aligns with the DIB’s strategic requirement for operational collaboration is crucial for a speedy response to incidents that do occur.
With the right training and tools, manufacturing organizations will be well on their way to fostering an environment in which cybersecurity is a central consideration for every member of the organization.
The Bottom Line
Manufacturing firms find themselves at a unique juncture: operations are increasingly digitized, yet many still rely on legacy systems. This can leave dangerous gaps from a cybersecurity perspective.
As cyberattacks and foreign espionage continue, organizations must prioritize cybersecurity. While cybersecurity contains many moving parts, incident response playbooks and the creation of a culture that prioritizes security can lay a strong foundation for long-term cyber resilience.
When manufacturing organizations and members of the DIB fall short of creating such a foundation, the consequences extend far beyond their own four walls. In this context, cybersecurity is a matter of national security and thus cannot be neglected, shortchanged, or overlooked.
