A greater awareness of security issues is inevitable in the course of the digitization and networking of industrial processes. According to a PAC study , market pressure today is the main driver for adopting modern manufacturing concepts and is increasingly accelerating the development of Industry 4.0 structures. Nevertheless, the manufacturing companies seem to pay close attention to adequate safety precautions. A survey by the Financial Services Information and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) of more than 100 CISOs in companies shows a positive image of a high degree of awareness concerning cybersecurity issues at board level. According to it, more than half (54%) of all Chief Information Security Officers report directly to the Board of Directors at least once every quarter, with 39% of all reports going to the head of the IT department (CIO) and only 8% to the CEO.

In terms of priority for security measures, the training of the company’s employees (35%) comes first, followed at some distance by the improvement of network security and the modernization of the existing IT infrastructure (25%). The active fight against data theft (17%) and specific security measures for the Cloud and the Internet of Things (9%) are of comparative importance. However, comprehensive concepts are ultimately made up of all aforementioned (and several other) factors.