Manufacturers are the top target for cyberattacks due to the increasing convergence of IT and operational technology (OT), complex supply chains, and critical uptime requirements. As threat actors evolve and incidents rise, traditional point-in-time scanning is no longer enough. Security teams in the manufacturing sector need to move to a continuous exposure management framework to proactively reduce their risk.
The State of Cyber Threats in Manufacturing
Data from Verizon’s 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report – Manufacturing Snapshot paints a stark picture for manufacturing.
- According to the report, the exploitation of vulnerabilities saw another year of growth as an initial access vector for breaches, reaching 20%. The report also states that although organizations worked hard to patch edge device and VPN vulnerabilities, only about 54% of those were fully remediated throughout the year and MTTR was 32 days.
- Espionage-motivated breaches in manufacturing grew to 17%. The report states those breaches leveraged the exploitation of vulnerabilities as an initial access vector 70% of the time—highlighting the risk of missing or misconfigured controls.
- The report states that ransomware is disproportionally affecting small organizations, comprising 88% of breaches experienced by SMBs
These statistics underscore the urgency for security teams in the manufacturing sector to adopt proactive and continuous security strategies.
What Is Continuous Exposure Management?
Continuous Exposure Management, or Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM), is a framework that continuously discovers, assesses, contextualizes, and prioritizes exposures across an organization’s entire environment — including IT, OT, cloud, and third-party systems. Unlike traditional vulnerability scanning that runs periodically, continuous exposure provides real-time visibility into an ever-changing attack surface and ties exposures to business impact and exploitability.
Key components include:
- Continuous discovery and inventory of assets (IT and OT)
- Correlation of exposures with threat intelligence
- Prioritization of risks by business impact and likelihood
- Automated remediation workflows
This framework enables security teams to focus efforts where they matter most—addressing the highest risk exposures first.
Why It Matters for Manufacturing Security Teams
Manufacturing environments have unique challenges:
1. Hybrid IT/OT Environments
Legacy OT systems were not built with modern security in mind. Continuous exposure management helps uncover hidden or unmanaged OT assets that traditional tools often miss, reducing blind spots.
2. Supply Chain and Vendor Risk
Manufacturing relies on the supply chain and 3rd party vendors. Visibility is needed to track vendor connections, identify excessive permissions, and ensure supplier systems aren’t creating exposures.
3. Prioritization Based on Business Criticality
Not all vulnerabilities are created equal. A misconfiguration in a test server isn’t as critical as an exposed industrial controller tied to production. Continuous exposure management correlates risk with real business impact, enabling smarter prioritization.
4. Faster Remediation and Less Downtime
Manufacturers depend on uptime. Production downtime can cost millions of dollars as shown by the Jaguar Land Rover breach of 2025. By automating workflows and validating remediation has been successful, continuous exposure management reduces the time systems remain vulnerable—minimizing disruption.
Key Components of an Exposure Management Program
A practical continuous exposure program typically includes:
Continuous Discovery
Real-time identification of all connected assets — from servers and cloud workloads to PLCs and edge OT devices.
Dynamic Exposure Assessment
Automated evaluation of asset weaknesses, missing controls, risky access privileges, misconfigurations, and known vulnerabilities, enriched with threat context.
Prioritization and Scoring
Exposure scoring that incorporates business impact, exploit likelihood, and operational importance to prioritize remediation of the vulnerabilities that pose the greatest risk.
Automated Remediation Workflows
Seamless integration with ticketing systems and security tooling to drive action and verify remediation, saving time and reducing manual effort.
Real-World Benefits for Manufacturing Security Teams
Manufacturers that adopt continuous exposure management can expect:
- Improved visibility across IT and OT environments
- Fewer blind spots and prioritized risk control
- Reduced mean time to remediation (MTTR) for critical exposures
- Stronger alignment between security, compliance, and business goals
The Sevco Exposure Assessment Platform (EAP) Supports Continuous Exposure Management
The Sevco EAP provides visibility and risk management across the entire manufacturing ecosystem—from the production floor to the enterprise network.
The Sevco platform:
- Generates a comprehensive asset inventory and relational map of your entire attack surface, including production systems, SCADA, PCS, applications, and users.
- Unifies, normalizes, prioritizes, and validates all types of exposures—missing security controls, misconfigurations, CVEs, cloud vulnerabilities, EOL and unpatched systems.
- Supports compliance with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and CMMC domains.
- Enables the verification and completion of remediation actions, tracks remediation state over time, highlights metrics such as mean time to remediation (MTTR), unmet SLAs, and patch efficacy.
Learn how Sevco can help you quickly and easily move to continuous exposure management. Contact us today.