Trend Micro’s The State of Industrial Cybersecurity: Converging IT and OT with People, Process, and Technology report found that that 61% of manufacturers it surveyed have experienced cyber-security incidents in their smart factories and are struggling to deploy the technology needed to effectively manage cyber risk.

Trend Micro appointed research specialist Vanson Bourne to conduct an online survey with 500 IT and OT (Operational Technology) professionals in the US, Germany and Japan. It found that 61% of manufacturers have experienced cyber-attack incidents, with 75% of them experiencing system outages as a result. Some 43% of respondents to the survey reported that their outages lasted longer than four days.

Trend Micro’s The State of Industrial Cybersecurity: Converging IT and OT with People, Process, and Technology headline findings include:

1. The results from all three countries ( US, Germany, Japan) showed that technology (78%) was seen as the biggest security challenge, although people (68%) and process (67%) were also cited as top challenges by many respondents

2. Fewer than 50% of the participants said they are implementing technical measures to improve cyber-security

3. Asset visualisation (40%) and segmentation (39%) were the least likely of cyber-security measures to be deployed, which may indicate that that they are the most technically challenging for organisations to execute, the report suggests

4. Organisations with a high degree of IT-OT collaboration were more likely to implement technical security measures than those with less cohesion between the two technological disciplines