Supply chain attack

For the manufacturing industry, not one manufacturer can complete the production of finished products, and must rely on parts from different manufacturers to complete the production and assembly of the entire product. Therefore, in the manufacturing process, multiple partners are required to collaborate and share to achieve efficient operation, which introduces the risk of supply chain attacks.

REJ603 Supply chain attacks are used by many criminals to steal sensitive data and intellectual property from manufacturers. If a malicious attacker obtains the permission of a partner to access the manufacturer’s network, through this permission, criminals can enter the manufacturer’s network, steal sensitive information or data, even core process manufacturing documents, etc., which will cause significant harm to the company.

In addition, the external software or hardware used by the manufacturer has security risks, and there is also the possibility of attack in the equipment and system supply chain. Most product development uses public open source or closed source components, but these components have more or less security vulnerabilities, and embedding defective components into products can lead to more security issues, such as the Ripple20 vulnerability revealed in June 2020. The REJ603 Ripple20 vulnerability exists in the TCP/IP protocol stack developed by Treck, which has been widely used and integrated into countless enterprise and personal consumer devices for more than 20 years, affecting hundreds of millions of Internet of Things (IoT) and industrial control devices worldwide.

REJ603

Ransomware attack

Ransomware is a type of malware that infects computer servers, desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones, infiltrating through a variety of mechanisms and often spreading laterally from one machine to another. Once infected, the virus will quietly encrypt data, REJ603 video, text and other files, and then demand a ransom from the user. Online payments ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars (often in hard-to-trace cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin) are then exchanged for decryption keys needed to recover the user’s locked files. Extortion demands typically involve a series of payment deadlines, with each missed deadline raising the ransom amount and potentially leading to the destruction of some files. If the victim doesn’t pay, the attacker drops the decryption key, permanently losing access to the data.

The 2017 WannaCry outbreak, in which car manufacturers were attacked, is an example of a notorious ransomware attack. The virus infected more than 200,000 computers in more than 150 countries. France’s Renault and its alliance partner Nissan were forced to temporarily shut down some factories in Europe after many of their systems were disabled by the attack. Facilities in France, Slovenia and Romania were hit hard and Renault was forced to temporarily shut down industrial production lines.

Manufacturers suffer from this ransomware attack, facing significant REJ603 losses, on the one hand, the encrypted files are usually manufacturing or other important data files, the lack of such files will be forced to shut down the production line, and then face a variety of pressure from partners and economic losses; On the other hand, the infected files cannot be recovered after an attack, and the cycle and workload of replacing new office equipment through virus detection or security protection are unacceptable to manufacturers, so manufacturers sometimes have to pay the ransom in order to quickly restore production and get on track, and the delayed working hours and production tasks during this period are a huge economic loss. Therefore, such attacks are currently the most feared by manufacturers.