Several high-profile cyberattacks in recent years revealed growing levels of security risk in the automotive sector. The industry needs to quickly increase awareness of the current attack surface, often through the installed base of network assets, including machines and devices on plant floors.
The Risks in the Automotive Sector
Successful attacks create not only financial risks in terms of ransomware shutdowns, data loss and expensive recovery processes, but also can create physical safety risks on automotive plant floors, lengthy supply chain disruptions—even litigation.
Fortunately, every automotive manufacturer can take steps to close common cybersecurity gaps. And it’s much more cost-efficient to strengthen cybersecurity resiliency up front than to allow high-priority, fixable gaps to remain unresolved.
This article outlines some common installed base vulnerabilities targeted by today’s threat actors.
OT/ICS Network and Asset Security
Over the last decade, automotive manufacturers opened up communications protocols and enabled plant floor data collection using an IoT-enabled ecosystem of sensors and actuators. Data sharing from OT to IT has greatly facilitated plant…
