Earlier in the year, Construction Business Owner Magazine outlined how engineering and construction firms would handle emerging technologies in 2023.

Despite the sector being “historically slow in integrating and adopting digital technologies,” industry leaders are now “increasingly paying attention to and leveraging emerging technologies.”

These technologies include, but aren’t limited to:

  • Internet of Things (IoT) devices
  • Immersive collaboration
  • Digital visual intelligence

And while the initiative is great, it’s true that more technology equals more vulnerabilities.

“As more ‘things’ come alive with the power of digitization and internet protocols, so do new vulnerabilities and risks…any organization that uses IoT in its infrastructure is also increasingly exposed to risk.”

One of the most prevalent cyber risks to emerge is ransomware.

According to the IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, ransomware has been the most frequent attack type targeting industries with OT networks at 36% of all attacks.

And in addition to becoming more frequent, ransomware attacks are also becoming more efficient—it takes bad actors less than 3.85 days to deploy ransomware attacks. Over the last few years, “the time to execute attacks dropped 94%”.

These ransomware attacks compromise organizations’ OT and IT networks.

Deloitte’s 2023 Engineering and Construction (EC) Outlook highlighted another unintended consequence of digitizing supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic: growing attack surfaces.

Your organization needs to focus on increasing the security of your cyber supply chain—that’s where cyber supply chain risk management (C-SCRM) comes in.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology states that C-SCRM pervades all facets of your org, from “sourcing, vendor management, supply chain continuity and quality, transportation security and many other functions across the enterprise[.]”

You need to develop a more holistic understanding of the pieces of your cyber supply chain, including:

  • Subscriptions
  • Maintenance contracts
  • Vendor support
  • Cloud services

To protect your business from threat actors looking to exploit vulnerabilities.

The bottom line is you need to support your rapid expansion from the inside out to ensure its success—take the first step with a thorough accounting of your current infrastructure with our Technology Roadmap Checklist.