The Bad Guys Are Salivating Over Manufacturing

Inside the resurgence of ransomware attacks and the rise of billion-dollar "unicorn" hacker gangs.Believe it or not, there was a time in recent history when we actually experienced a reprieve in ransomware attacks. According to a report from Black Kite, a leading provider of third-party risk management and cyber intelligence, a number of factors contributed to a flattening of ransomware attack frequency in late 2021 and into 2022.Unfortunately, the bad guys evolved and ransomware attacks have surged in early 2023, with the number of ransomware victims in March of this year coming in at nearly twice that of April 2022, and 1.6 times higher than last year’s highest monthly total.New players like Black Basta, as well as new strategies from well-known adversaries like LockBit once again brought manufacturing to the top of the list of favorite targets. According to the report, manufacturing represented nearly one out of every five attacks.Our guest for today’s episode is Jeffrey Wheatman, a Cyber Risk Evangelist at Black Kite.We’re also excited to announce that Security Breach is being sponsored by Pentera. For more information on their cybersecurity solutions, you can go to Pentara.io.To download our latest report on industrial cybersecurity,  The Industrial Sector’s New Battlefield, click here.To catch up on past episodes, you can go to Manufacturing.net, IEN.com or MBTmag.com. You can also check Security Breach out wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple, Amazon and Overcast. And if you have a cybersecurity story or topic that you’d like to have us explore on Security Breach, you can reach me at jeff@ien.com.To download our latest report on industrial cybersecurity, The Industrial Sector’s New Battlefield, click here.