The manufacturing sector is facing a serious and evolving ransomware threat. According to a recent Sophos report titled The State of Ransomware in Manufacturing and Production 2025, manufacturers and production organizations are seeing ransomware attack patterns shift as adversaries exploit security gaps and insufficient expertise within cybersecurity teams. SOPHOS
Drawing on responses from 332 IT and cybersecurity leaders in manufacturing, the Sophos research reveals a stark reality: exploited vulnerabilities are the top technical cause of attacks, and operational weaknesses like lack of expertise are frequent contributors to successful ransomware incidents.
In this blog, we break down the key findings and explore what business owners must do now to protect their companies.
One of the most critical takeaways from the Sophos study is how attack patterns are changing. While data encryption—the classic ransomware tactic—has declined to its lowest level in five years at around 40% of incidents, other threats are rising. Extortion-only attacks, where adversaries steal sensitive data and pressure victims without encrypting systems, increased to 10% of attacks. Data theft remains a major concern, with 39% of organizations that experienced encryption also reporting stolen data.
More positively, about half of manufacturing organizations surveyed were able to halt attacks before data encryption occurred, more than double the rate from the previous year. However, the report also highlights that significant gaps still exist in cybersecurity posture.
The Sophos report identifies several internal factors that leave manufacturing organizations exposed:
1. Lack of Cybersecurity Expertise
The most common organizational contributing factor, cited by 42.5% of respondents, is insufficient skills or knowledge to detect and stop ransomware in time.
2. Unknown Security Gaps
Closely following lack of expertise, unknown weaknesses in defenses were named by 41.6% of victims. These unrecognized gaps create blind spots that attackers can exploit.
3. Inadequate Protection
Around 41% of respondents pointed to weak protection as a contributing factor to successful attacks.
This combination of expertise shortages, overlooked vulnerabilities, and inadequate protection forms a perfect storm, making manufacturing environments ripe targets for ransomware gangs.
The impact of ransomware isn’t just technical; it’s human and organizational. Sophos found that every manufacturing and production organization hit with data encryption reported negative consequences for their IT and cybersecurity teams. Nearly half of respondents said the attack increased anxiety and stress about future attacks, shifted priorities, and heightened pressure from leadership. A concerning share experienced staff absenteeism due to stress or even leadership replacement following the breach.
These human costs amplify the urgency for better cybersecurity practices. It’s not enough to simply react after an attack happens; organizations must build resilience that prevents attackers from gaining a foothold in the first place.
The Sophos recommendations for improving defenses still emphasize detection and response as essential. While these capabilities remain important, they are reactive by design: they identify and address threats after they have breached initial defenses.
For manufacturing organizations facing a shortage of expertise and growing security gaps, a purely reactive model is not enough. Relying on detect and respond means accepting that attackers might already be inside your systems before action is taken. The result is often costly downtime, lost data, and significant business disruption.
This is where AppGuard’s approach to endpoint protection stands apart. With a proven 10-year track record, AppGuard does not rely primarily on detection. Instead, it uses isolation and containment as foundational defenses. Rather than waiting to identify malicious behavior, AppGuard prevents unauthorized actions from executing in the first place—especially those triggered by exploited vulnerabilities or unknown threat vectors.
This containment-first strategy is especially valuable in environments like manufacturing, where:
Unknown security gaps are common,
Expertise is limited, and
Traditional defenses may miss advanced or novel attack techniques.
AppGuard essentially reduces the attack surface by neutralizing malicious activity before it can manifest, providing strong endpoint protection even in the face of resource constraints.
Manufacturing organizations need security that keeps pace with modern threats. Sophos’s findings underscore a clear lesson: prevention is better than cure. While detecting threats quickly remains necessary, preventing them from executing or spreading is far more impactful. Isolation and containment delivers on that by:
Minimizing dependency on specialized expertise,
Protecting against unknown vulnerabilities and zero-day threats,
Reducing business disruption and operational risk,
Enabling faster recovery with less stress on teams.
The Sophos report makes one thing clear: ransomware continues to evolve, and manufacturing organizations cannot afford to lag behind. Gaps in expertise and protection leave companies exposed, and traditional detect and respond strategies are no longer sufficient on their own.
At CHIPS, we help business owners adopt advanced endpoint protection solutions like AppGuard that emphasize isolation and containment to stop attacks before they start. With a decade of proven success, AppGuard is now available for commercial use, bringing enterprise-level resilience within reach for organizations of all sizes.
Talk with us at CHIPS today to learn how AppGuard can prevent ransomware incidents like those highlighted in the Sophos report and help you move beyond detect and respond toward true isolation and containment protection.
Like this article? Please share it with others!