Hannover fair
Study: Mechanical engineers improve protection against hackers
German mechanical engineers are becoming the goal of attacks from the Internet more often. But the hackers are much less common. The companies have upgraded and improved their protection.
According to a study, the German machine and plant builders are much better equipped against hacking attacks than it was years ago. Although the number of attacks is increasing significantly, more and more could be warded off, the result of a study that the VDMA industry association presented at the Hannover Messe. The bottom line was that the number of companies that felt negative consequences even dropped.
Only half of the companies (55 percent) reported effects through security incidents in the survey of negative consequences. In the previous survey in 2019, it was almost 70 percent. The VDMA attributes this primarily to better safety precautions. At the same time, the number of cyber attacks has increased significantly in 2019. Nevertheless, cyber attacks are caused by damage in the three -digit billions of billions every year.
The companies affected by security incidents mostly recorded capital damage (32 percent) and loss of production (29 percent). In contrast, there have been no security -critical incidents that endanger people or the environment in the past two years. And only three percent of those affected also reported a critical loss of know-how due to hacker attacks. In 2019 there were still three times as many.
Small companies still have some catching up to do
“Of course, the result is a progress, but no reason for the all-clear,” said Maximilian Moser, VDMA expert for software and digitization. “Small and medium -sized companies in particular have to be supported in a targeted manner.” While 73 percent of large companies with more than 1,000 employees now have representatives for internet security, the total of only 58 percent is.
dpa
Source: Stern
