How Can Automation Systems Shield the Food Industry from Cyber Attacks?

The food and beverage industry is not oblivious to the risks associated with cyberattacks. How can they deal with it?

FREMONT, CA: These days, connected automation systems are contributing significantly in making the food and beverage manufacturing more efficacious, productive, and cost-effective. However, this greater connectivity is creating a bigger opportunity for agroterrorism.

This greater level of connectivity empowers plant managers to allocate and supervise several data points spanning all areas of the production line, which includes changes in equipment performance, increased efficiency, quality, and improvements to human security. Unfortunately, cybercriminals target these kinds of automation systems for disrupting business or industry.

Data susceptibility can be put into various risk categories—for example, data corruption or loss, theft, public exposure, and data manipulation. Therefore, the foremost priority of all the food and beverage manufacturers should be to make sure that the process data is shielded against the cyber attacks.

A significant risk of a data breach is the malicious manipulation of recipes. In comparison to banking and financial firms, the retail, food, and beverage sectors are mostly attacked. With the increase in automated production lines, hackers have gained the potential to hack into programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to jeopardize a food supply or risk food safety by shutting down refrigeration systems. This has a harmful impact on suppliers as well as transporters, distributors, and restaurant chains.

Generally, food and beverage enterprises don’t possess comprehensive cybersecurity programs, which can pose a risk of causing illness and fatalities via tainted food, ultimately resulting in legal battles, fines, and much more. Besides, this impacts the food brand negatively as well. To make the situation worse, the companies might face a costly downtime due to the shutting down of the production line until the problem is resolved.

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Since the majority of the operational technology system is interconnected with the IT network, it leaves them more vulnerable as there are several access points for cyber-attacks. Flaws in the operating system, insecure remote access, and improper staff training can impact the strength of the organization’s cybersecurity. Fortunately, there are some steps that can minimize the likelihood of these attacks.

Simple preventive measures like implementing firewalls, deployment of security updates on time, and utilizing anti-virus software, can provide protection again some common attacks. In order to protect the data, it is vital to consider security zones as well. It is important to carry out risk assessments to detail each possible threat area and analyze the identified susceptibilities for their likelihood of ensuring the adequate security of the safety systems.

The aim of the threat detection is to keep a check and supervise the status of all the operational devices and configuration of parameter setting, thus avoiding any unauthorized disruptions. The consistent monitoring of these systems offers plant managers an early warning sign of any malicious events or unauthorized changes.

Some services, such as ABB Ability Cyber Security Services, equip manufacturers with personalized cybersecurity solutions with several layers of control. These services are specifically designed to provide protection for the whole system lifecycle, from the detection of security risk to the recovery of jeopardized systems, and can identify the susceptibilities that are present in the system. In this manner, it addresses the areas of weaknesses as well as implements the security controls.

Moreover, plant managers should adopt these safety systems with cloud infrastructure built into the platform, which will empower them to store their data securely.

The food and beverage manufacturers must comply with the fast production cycles for preserving nutrition value and freshness, simultaneously meeting the high-quality standards of the food that the industry demands. Undoubtedly, automation is the key to remain competitive and achieve these objectives. However, it is necessary to adopt an effective cybersecurity solution for safeguarding these systems.

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