Heavy Equipment Industry & Cyberattacks: How To Protect Inventory

The current landscape of the heavy equipment industry is under the rubble of cyberattacks. Although automation networks help in boosting equipment’s performance businesses still lack security against cyber threats.

The staggering cost of cyber crime is expected to reach $9.5 trillion by 2024 and continue to expand to $10.5 trillion by the end of 2025. Having said that, small businesses generally fell prey to such attacks. 43% of small businesses ratio have faced cyber attacks out of which only 16% of them of effective security tools to save their digital infrastructure.

Decoding The Upcoming Storm

With the latest integration of AI and digital concepts, heavy equipment, and the construction industry have fallen under the radar of cyber criminals. These attacks include property theft, data breaches, ransomware attacks, and missing equipment parts leading to significant financial and reputational loss for the owners.

Generally, equipment is linked and operated through traditional control systems including industrial control systems. These systems are not well defined to bear or even detect from a cyberattack. However, the disruptions can seriously impact the supply chain as well as the consumer market.

This has made manufacturing plants a big prey to cyber crimes which nearly all renowned heavy equipment manufacturers and dealers are anxious about. Paralley, AI is serving as both a threat and an opportunity for multiple industries and heavy equipment companies. Especially, the launch of GPS tracking has both eased the freight services as well as made way for hackers to hack the consignment if God forbade they decode the code.

The misuse of AI and digitalization has shited the main objective which was to create a secure and high-productivity environment. Let’s discuss further how cybersecurity is taking over the heavy equipment sector and how owners can prevent it;

AI As An Opportunity

According to IBM, 90% of companies integrate AI to boost cyber security in different forms. The integration of massive real-time data by AI is the reason behind its prevailing integration. Here are some key benefits AI offers;

Quick Threat Identification

AI algorithms can sense bots and cyber attacks. Any odd traffic or request gives a dangerous indication to the administration.

Automated Response

AI can conduct a few automated tasks as an incident response feature. It can block suspicious IP addresses and restrict infected files to increase the installed equipment software’s safety.

Active Care

Through patterns and previous data, AI offers a predictive maintenance regime to minimze potential cyberattacks or similar vulnerabilities. Moreover, fleet owners can find weaknesses and cement loopholes to avoid cyberattacks.

AI As A Threat

Talking about the other side of the coin, AI also makes equipment data prone to breaches by;

Exposure

Due to the vast adoption of AI in different domains, it has created a larger market for cyber criminals. Hackers can make use of vulnerabilities in AI modules.

Clarity Concerns

AI systems are complex and make decision-making opaque for untrained fleet owners, especially on how to manage uninvited cyberattacks. Therefore, it can create security gaps. A self-taught AI module may overlook threats due to biased data.

Data Breaches

AI works on real-time data. A minute hole in the data management system of a heavy equipment inventory can lead to a leak of all confidential data.

Staying Conscious And Updated

After all, it is not a question of if the company will be attacked. It is a question of when they will be attacked and how prepared they are when it happens.

The question is not if the company is attacked its more about when will it be attacked and how will save itself.

You need to build a network where even after the attack, the hackers fail to disrupt the system.

Developing a robust digital security system requires time and expertise. Therefore traditional heavy equipment companies need to invest in hiring a techsavvy army that can develop a cybercrime-proof system.

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