Digitain has ranked industrial manufacturing as the sector most exposed to cybercrime in a new cross-industry risk assessment, giving it the maximum Cyber Risk and Targeting Score of 99.
The study examined weekly attack volumes, annual changes in cyberattacks, breach counts, breach costs, phishing susceptibility, and ransomware incidents. Healthcare and medical ranked second with a score of 96, followed by information technology on 92, financial services on 89, and software on 87.
Industrial manufacturing recorded 1,567 global weekly cyberattacks and a 19% year-on-year increase, alongside an estimated 1,607 data breaches. The average breach cost for the sector was put at $5 million, while 43.7% of employees were classed as phish-prone and ransomware incidents affected 20.7% of organisations.
Ransomware remains especially damaging in production environments because disruption can spread from business systems into scheduling, maintenance, plant-floor networks, and customer delivery. In a tightly connected factory, a compromised account or unpatched system can become an operational stoppage rather than a contained IT incident.
Recent external threat data points in the same direction. NCC Group reported that industrial organisations experienced 2,073 ransomware attacks in the 12 months from March 2025, accounting for 29.6% of all ransomware activity on average. Capital goods organisations, including machine, equipment, and infrastructure manufacturers, accounted for 1,192 of those attacks.
UK-focused research from ESET also found that 78% of manufacturers had experienced a cybersecurity incident in the previous 12 months. Reported effects included downtime, lost revenue, supply chain disruption, and missed customer commitments, reinforcing the shift of cyber risk from back-office resilience into operational continuity.
Financial services still recorded a high-risk profile in Digitain’s assessment, with 1,735 weekly attacks, 927 estimated breaches, breach costs of $5.56 million, and a phish-prone rate of 44.7%. Healthcare carried the highest breach cost in the top 10 at $7.42 million, while also recording the highest phishing susceptibility rate at 53.6%.
A cybersecurity expert from Digitain said: “Teaching employees basic cyber hygiene has become critical for every company. Even hospitals need to train their staff, and while you wouldn’t expect medical workers to be tech experts, they’re handling personal information that’s basically the new gold now.”
The expert added that AI is increasing the speed and credibility of phishing campaigns, allowing attackers to send thousands of convincing fake messages in minutes. The complete research findings are available from Digitain.
