"Frightening data"

EU industry barely prepared for cyber attacks

A Cisco study identifies an acute need for action in terms of cyber security precautions at eight out of ten companies in Europe.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com)

According to a study, industrial companies in Europe are inadequately prepared for hacker attacks. Only two percent of companies are in the best possible position here, while 17 percent can at least be said to be well protected, according to a study by network equipment provider Cisco ahead of the Hannover Messe trade fair, which begins on Monday (April 22-26). In contrast, more than 80 percent of companies need to take action.

In comparison with other sectors, the industry is only in the lower midfield. Cisco determined the best values for technology providers, where 28% are well or very well prepared, followed by the financial sector with 23%. Europe's industry also performed poorly in a global comparison. In the USA, 29% of industrial companies are well or very well equipped against cyberattacks, ten percentage points more than in Europe. The worst performers in Europe were educational institutions and the healthcare sector.

"Frightening data"
"This is frightening data," said Christian Korff, member of the management board at Cisco in Germany, to the German Press Agency. "The European industry clearly has some catching up to do here, as it is easily vulnerable in many places." This could pose a serious threat to the location. "A sufficiently good cyber defense can be decisive for the survival of companies today," said the manager.

For the study, Cisco surveyed more than 8,000 company executives worldwide in January and February, 2,000 of them in Europe. 214 came from industry. The survey also revealed that companies' own perceptions often do not match the real threat. Almost 80 percent of managers in Europe stated that they were confident that they would be able to withstand cyberattacks. At the same time, however, 72% expected their business to be interrupted in the next one to two years due to a cyberattack. "That's quite impressive," noted Korff. "Companies feel relatively safe, even though they are relatively ill-prepared."

"Then production stops..."
Incidents like the one at the University of Giessen in Germany, which was offline for months after a hacker attack at the end of 2020, showed the dangers that lay ahead. "If this happens to us in the manufacturing sector, then we don't need to worry about global supply chains. Then production will stop here," warned Korff. The supplier Continental was also the victim of a cyberattack last year, in which data was tapped. At hearing aid manufacturer Kind, the central corporate IT was paralyzed for several days in February after hackers infiltrated the system.

In some cases, the operating system was still running Windows 95 or 98.

Christian Korff, Cisco Deutschland

The main reason for the poor performance of many industrial companies is the longevity of many production systems, said Korff. "Manufacturing processes have been supported electronically for 30 years. Some of them are still running Windows 95 or 98 as the operating system. Of course, they are not up to date with the latest technology." And they are also difficult to retrofit. "The old operating systems and the existing machines make it extremely difficult to install security technology here."

The infrastructure for AI is often lacking
The situation is somewhat better when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI). 34 percent of industry is well or very well positioned here. However, Korff said that this is not really satisfactory. Although 64% of companies have an AI strategy, only 34% have the technical infrastructure to actually use AI. "And when I see that a third of industrial companies still don't have an AI strategy, I get scared," added Korff. After all, this is probably the most important key technology of the future.

"The manufacturing industry must be careful not to miss out on the two technological megatrends of cyber security and AI - this applies to Europe and Germany," warned Korff. Otherwise, competitiveness would be at risk. "This is existential for the German and European economy. If we are not able to use AI, but at the same time protect ourselves from AI attacks, then we will not survive the next decade."