Legacy Systems Continue to Leave Manufacturing Exposed: Study

Ransomware, malware, and social engineering continue to be among the most prevalent cyber threats in 2025, as outlined in IDS-INDATA’s 2025 findings, which highlights the urgent need for manufacturers to modernize their OT-IT environments.

“Supply chain attacks let criminals do less work and reap more reward — one compromise, often many victims. Defending the chain is defending everyone,” says Ryan Cooke, CISO at IDS-INDATA.

Key takeaways:

• 1.1% increase in spear phishing — Targeted phishing attacks remain widespread
• 20% increase in supply chain attacks, fastest-growing cyber threat to manufacturing
• 7.1% rise in ransomware — Continued escalation of industrial attacks
• 6% growth in malware — Malware continues to exploit OT-IT vulnerabilities
• 7.9% spike in social engineering attacks — AI-enhanced manipulation targeting human error
• Supply chain attacks have now increased by 20% year-on-year, solidifying their position as the most rapidly expanding cyber threat to manufacturers.
• Top 5 evolving threat landscape in manufacturing are supply chain attacks (+20%); ransomware (+7.1%); malware (+6%); social engineering (+7.9%); and spear phishing (+1.1%).