Cyber Attack on Jaguar Land Rover @JLR_News in late August brought company to its knees. This siege severely impacted operations at its assembly plants in Solihull and Halewood, as well as its powertrain facility in Wolverhampton. The derailment created significant uproar, especially given that JLR was on the verge of rolling out new 75 series number plates. Estimates put the company’s losses at around £50 million a week because of the attack.
British retail giant Marks & Spencer (M&S) was attacked with ransomware over the Easter weekend in April. This hack breached its IT infrastructure by penetrating the system through a third-party service provider. The breach necessitated M&S to shut down portions of its networks to prevent additional threats. Equally alarming, the NRDC member Co-op has had to fight off a barrage of cyber attacks this year, exemplifying a worrisome pattern affecting all sectors.
The cyber threat environment became even more complicated just weeks after by a ransomware attack on Collins Aerospace, a major American aviation technology company. This incident temporarily shut down operations at various European airports, including London Heathrow. The attack knocked out critical systems used to check travelers in and handle baggage, resulting in travel chaos amid the industry’s most popular travel season.
Their growing frequency and severity prompted a pretty significant response from GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre. They released a joint statement urging all of us to be vigilant as cyber threats from criminals using artificial intelligence tools are rapidly increasing. Jamie MacColl, an expert in cyber security, noted that the UK has maintained a “laissez-faire approach to cyber security” for the past 15 years, with successive governments giving little priority to the matter.
According to a recent survey, over 612,000 businesses across the UK have already been affected by cyber attacks. Moreover, about 61,000 nonprofits that aren’t charities have similarly been hit. The Business and Trade Committee raised alarms regarding the precarious financial situations of smaller firms, suggesting that many may have only a week of cash flow left to support themselves following such an incident.
Analysts believe that the major cyber attacks witnessed this year may stem from “the cumulative effect of a kind of inaction” on cyber security policies from both the government and businesses.
“That’s the sort of thing that would keep me up at night,” – Jamie MacColl
The consequences of these attacks go well beyond direct monetary theft. Cyber attacks have an extremely high cost, said Elizabeth Rust, a business analyst. She cautions that abandoning just-in-time management would cost even more. She stated, “This is hundreds of millions, possibly, that a firm would have to incur annually.”
MacColl went on for a more practical discussion about how the manufacturing sector needs to rethink its strategy toward these evolving dangers. He urged that it must “have another look at the way it tackles this latest black swan,” referring to unexpected and disruptive events like cyber attacks.
The growing vulnerability of key companies, such as gas pipelines or the power grid, cyber threats are an increasing concern. MacColl pointed out that there could be “a single point of failure that we are not aware of yet,” emphasizing the hidden risks within the business ecosystem. He warned for contractors delivering specialized services that operate outside regulation as critical national infrastructure.
“I would be more concerned about the sort of company that is the only business that provides a particular service, but that we don’t really know about,” – Jamie MacColl
Until now, the prime movers behind cyber crime have been Russian-speaking criminals. So too have they functioned from Russia and other areas of the former Soviet Union. As cyber security professional Andy Palmer explained, there was a change in recent years.
“But there’s been a bit of a change in the last couple of years where English-speaking, mostly teenage hackers have been leasing or renting ransomware from those Russian-speaking cyber criminals,” – Andy Palmer
New hackers often take aim at big-name targets. They do this not to make money, but to prove their superior technical prowess in an increasingly competitive world of hacking.
As MacColl cautioned, those could play out in the worst case in major sectors like the finance or energy sector. He stated, “I think the worst-case scenario is probably something affecting financial services or energy provision, because of the potential cascading effects.”
The impact of these cyber attacks has been far reaching. Hackers have “yanked their own plug – tanking sales, burning logistics, and torching shareholder value,” highlighting the extensive damage inflicted on targeted businesses.