When Production Stops: The Real Cost of Cyberattacks on Manufacturing

Why investing in cybersecurity resilience today can prevent costly production disruptions tomorrow

By Chetrice Romero, Senior Cybersecurity Advisor at Ice Miller LLP.

Manufacturers invest heavily in automation, efficiency and technology to keep production lines moving. From interconnected equipment and automated controls to inventory management, scheduling and shipping, today’s manufacturing operations depend on an increasingly complex network of digital systems.

These advancements have transformed the industry. They have also created new vulnerabilities.

What happens when a cyberattack disrupts the technology keeping operations running? How long can production continue? What happens to employees, customers, suppliers and the bottom line?

For manufacturing leaders, cybersecurity is no longer simply about protecting data or preventing unauthorized network access. It is about protecting the organization’s ability to operate, meet commitments and recover when something goes wrong.

When Cyberattacks Hit the Production Floor

Recent incidents demonstrate how quickly a cybersecurity event can become a significant business disruption.

In August, medical device manufacturer Boston Scientific experienced a cybersecurity incident that disrupted manufacturing, order processing and shipping. The company announced full restoration of manufacturing, order fulfillment and shipping on September 9, approximately two weeks after the incident began.

The financial consequences were significant enough that the company notified investors that it was unlikely to meet its previously announced third-quarter and full-year sales growth and adjusted earnings guidance. Even as systems were restored, the company faced order backlogs and the challenge of returning operations to normal.

Bridgestone Americas experienced a cybersecurity incident in late August 2025 that disrupted manufacturing and retreading operations across North America and Latin America. Its Joliette, Quebec, plant suspended production for approximately five days, affecting more than 85% of its 1,400 employees. South Carolina facilities also reported operational disruptions. By September 16, Bridgestone confirmed that production was ramping back toward normal levels, although the full scope and financial impact remain undisclosed.

These incidents highlight an important reality: Cyberattacks do not have to directly compromise industrial equipment to stop production. Disruptions to scheduling, inventory, communications, shipping or other interconnected systems can interrupt manufacturing even when production equipment remains functional.

The increasing convergence of information technology and operational technology, including industrial control systems and automated production equipment, creates additional dependencies that manufacturers must understand and protect.

The Financial Reality: What Does Downtime Actually Cost?

One of the most important questions manufacturing executives should ask has little to do with technology: How much money would our organization lose if production stopped for one hour, one day, three days or two weeks?

The answer extends far beyond lost production revenue.

A prolonged disruption can result in employee downtime and overtime expenses, missed orders, delayed shipments, damaged inventory, contractual penalties, and additional recovery costs. Manufacturers may also face supplier costs for materials already ordered, cancellation or storage fees, and expedited shipping expenses when production resumes. Delayed customer deliveries can further result in lost revenue, canceled orders, and damaged business relationships.

For manufacturers operating on tight margins or just-in-time schedules, these consequences can compound quickly.

Understanding the financial impact of downtime allows leadership to make informed decisions about cybersecurity investments, prioritize critical systems and determine how much disruption the organization can reasonably tolerate. The cost of preparedness becomes easier to justify when compared with the potential cost of being unprepared.

Cybersecurity Preparedness Requires More Than Backups

Many manufacturers have invested in cybersecurity tools and data backups. These protections are important, but a backup does not tell a plant manager how to maintain safe operations while systems are unavailable.

That requires three interconnected planning capabilities.

A cybersecurity incident response plan establishes how the organization identifies, escalates, manages and communicates during a cyber incident. The plan should define responsibilities and decision-making authority across IT, executive leadership, plant operations, legal counsel, communications and external partners. A cybersecurity incident may begin with IT, but its consequences require decisions across the organization.

Business continuity and downtime procedures define how essential operations can continue safely when critical technology becomes unavailable. Manufacturers should document alternative procedures for production scheduling, inventory, quality control, shipping and other critical activities. Leadership must also determine which processes can continue at reduced capacity and which must stop until systems are restored.

Disaster recovery plans and restoration playbooks establish how critical technology will be restored, including dependencies between business applications, production equipment, facilities and vendors. Recovery playbooks should identify restoration priorities, technical requirements and safe restart procedures. Restoring a system does not automatically mean production can safely resume. Equipment settings, operational processes and product quality may need to be validated first.

Without these coordinated plans, organizations risk spending valuable hours or days identifying dependencies and making decisions in the middle of a crisis.

Five Practical Steps Manufacturing Leaders Can Take Now

Building resilience does not require overhauling every cybersecurity capability overnight. It starts with understanding what matters most and preparing accordingly.

1. Identify your most critical operations. Determine which production processes, equipment, technologies and suppliers are essential. Understand what would happen if an attacker disrupted or manipulated them.

2. Calculate the cost of downtime. Work with finance, operations and IT to estimate losses from one hour, one day, three days and two weeks of interrupted production. Include workforce, contractual, customer and supply-chain impacts.

3. Connect your response and recovery plans. Ensure that cybersecurity incident response, business continuity and disaster recovery plans address operational dependencies, decision-making responsibilities, downtime procedures and safe restoration.

4. Protect critical operational technology. Review connections between production systems, business networks, vendors and remote access services. Implement appropriate network segmentation, access controls and monitoring to reduce the likelihood that one compromised system disrupts an entire operation.

5. Practice before an actual incident. Conduct tabletop exercises involving executive leadership, IT, operations, plant managers and legal counsel. Test realistic scenarios involving production outages, extended downtime and disrupted supply chains. Exercises often reveal gaps that written plans alone cannot identify.

Resilience Is an Investment in Keeping Production Moving

Manufacturers understand preventive maintenance. Investing resources to maintain equipment today helps prevent expensive failures tomorrow.

Cybersecurity resilience deserves the same consideration.

Preparation requires time, resources and leadership commitment that companies may be reluctant to provide. However, those investments should be weighed against the financial consequences of lost production, employee downtime, interrupted supply chains and prolonged recovery.

No organization can eliminate every cybersecurity risk. Manufacturers can, however, reduce the likelihood that a cyber incident becomes a prolonged business crisis. The objective is not simply to prevent an attack or restore a server but rather to ensure that the organization knows how to respond, maintain essential operations where safely possible and recover with confidence.

Cybersecurity resilience starts with leaders who invest in preparation so that production can keep moving even if technology is disrupted.

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Chetrice Romero is a senior cybersecurity advisor at Ice Miller focused on Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program strategy, cybersecurity governance, compliance and organizational resilience. She helps business leaders understand their current cybersecurity and compliance posture; determine applicable requirements; and develop practical roadmaps that coordinate legal, technical, operational, governance and third-party workstreams. Her experience includes cybersecurity program development, policy and governance; vendor and supply-chain risk; incident response; and disaster recovery, training and exercises. She can be reached at chetrice.romero@icemiller.com.