The shift toward automation has radically changed the infrastructure requirements for food manufacturers.

Connectivity provides manufacturing plant operations many advantages like increased productivity, faster identification and remediation of quality defects, and better collaboration across functional areas. However, this connectivity is dramatically increasing smart factories’ vulnerabilities and leaving them exposed to cybersecurity threats.

Smartphones on the plant floor: Bring your own device (BYOD) or use company-owned devices? This question no doubt conjures up a multitude of things—good and bad—for personal devices on the plant floor, for example, connecting people with equipment and company data and providing workers with actionable information on the process and maintenance to make good decisions.

The company's information systems professionals and third-party experts are working with all available resources to investigate the outage and resolve the situation.

Known for its industrial line of printers, Videojet has extended networking options for users who need wireless connections but are squeamish about connecting their printers via just Wi-Fi—or Ethernet cabling—to internal plant or enterprise networks.

What qualities to look for in an industrial Ethernet switch that can provide long-term reliability in an F&B plant.

Having a plan for IT and OT system security and a response to any intrusion will help thwart cyberattacks.

While it may not be possible to secure every device in a control or sensor/actuator network, other precautions can make OT networks safer from attack.

While food and beverage processors have been scrambling to protect their process control equipment, intellectual property (IP) and IT/OT systems from cybersecurity/ransomware attacks, their efforts may be outpacing the Federal Government, which should be setting an example by having secured its own agencies from cyberattacks.

: Just when IT and OT professionals were feeling a little more comfortable in preventing and tackling ransomware/malware attacks, now they have something new to worry about—and potentially just as insidious—the Log4j vulnerability.