Cybersecurity to forestall healthcare and reputation risks in the meat sector

Business activity in the meat sector is fraught with risks, of a food-based, financial or labor nature, among others. These risks may pose serious problems for companies. A risk-minimizing strategy is therefore essential to keep them under control and guarantee the ongoing feasibility of the activity in question. With this in mind Spain’s national meat-industry association (Asociación Nacional de Industrias de la Carne de España: ANICE) has organized a webinar attended by expert cybersecurity companies to look at information protection and the knock-on advantages of such measures for meat firms as well as the reasons why cybersecurity has become essential to fend off any security breach, manage risks and fight off attacks.

In his speech Javier Hidalgo, Industry Business Partner of GMV’s Secure e-Solutions Sector, gave an overview of cybersecurity in the productive industries, focusing on how this gives meat-industry firms a crucial competitive edge over the rest. He stressed that cybersecurity should be construed as an investment designed to protect productive processes, while also turning companies’ assets to the best possible account. This should start, he argued, with a risk assessment identifying the external attacks the firm in question is likely to be hit by, then applying mitigation techniques to minimize their impact and get systems up and running again as soon as possible afterwards.

Hidalgo pointed out that any cybersecurity incident in the food industry might produce a loss of prestige or, in the worst-case-scenario, a health problem. To head off these risks he put forward a reference cybersecurity framework, valid not only for corporate systems but also whole industrial environments, while also pinpointing the main cyber-threat input vectors calling for special attention.

He wound up by highlighting the importance of defining an in-company cybersecurity strategy, recommending that a specialist risk-analysis firm should be brought in to underpin this strategy.