Indian manufacturing industry at high cyber security risk

Seqrite, a specialist provider of endpoint security, network security, enterprise mobility management and data protection solutions, has revealed the massive cybersecurity risk facing the Indian manufacturing industry at present. According to the Seqrite Threat Report Q1 2019, the sector accounted for more than 27 per cent of the threats detected by Seqrite between January and March 2019 – the highest of all industries.

With global manufacturers expected to invest around USD 70 billion on industrial IoT solutions in 2020, the growing integration of IT (Information Technology) and OT (Operational Technology) presents a major security risk. Many IoT-enabled devices commonly leveraged by manufacturers such as sensors, barcode readers; quality control systems, inventory management solutions, etc. come with weak or minimal security. Such unsecured connected devices present a lucrative avenue to cybercriminals to attack and infiltrate the larger enterprise network.

The cyber threat detection trends revealed by Seqrite is an alarming trend for manufacturers in India, particularly in light of the recent shift in global regulations towards more stringent data protection and privacy policies. Apart from the loss of revenues/market credibility and the operational disruption caused by successful cyber-attacks, they will also now be hit with heavy financial penalties imposed by regulatory bodies for every security breach.

Manufacturers with inadequate cybersecurity also risk their intellectual properties (IP) such as new technologies/products, confidential designs/formulas, and manufacturing processes being compromised by outside actors and internal threats. These IPs can then be sold to potential buyers, including competitors, or heavily advertised across the Dark Web.

Apart from the manufacturing industry, the latest quarterly Seqrite Threat Report also highlighted several other sectors which were at high risk from cyber threats. Enterprises in industries such as Professional Services (22.59 per cent) and Education (14.64 per cent) were all hit by high volumes of cyber threats during Q1 2019.

As per the report, Seqrite detected more than 28 million malware threats in Q1 2019 across enterprise endpoints, translating to around 216 threats per minute. The threat activity spiked in March 2019, in order to capitalize on the distraction caused by financial year-ending accounting. At 46 per cent, Trojans were the most common malware deployed against Indian enterprises, followed by infector threats (17 per cent) and cryptojacking (12 per cent).

Threat actors also continued to use brute-force attacks to exploit vulnerabilities in the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and Server Message Block (SMB) Protocol in a bid to compromise unsecured enterprise devices and gain access to enterprise networks. Security experts at Seqrite also highlighted the growing trend of abusing open source tools for building new malware, making it possible for cybercriminals to deploy newer malware variants at speed and scale.

Based on Seqrite telemetry data, the Seqrite Threat Report Q1 2019 has been compiled by Quick Heal Security Labs, the R&D division of Quick Heal Technologies. Quick Heal Security Labs is a leading source of threat research, threat intelligence, and cybersecurity and analyses data fetched from millions of Quick Heal products across the globe. It aims to arm enterprises and consumers with cutting-edge security threat research and cyber intelligence, thus delivering enhanced, timely, and improved protection against existing and future cyber threats.