In the world of modern manufacturing, legacy digital forms do not gracefully retire after years of service; instead, they often persist as forgotten digital backdoors, silently beginning to leak sensitive company and customer data. These aging forms are ubiquitous, embedded deep within operational workflows and collecting highly sensitive information on infrastructure that predates contemporary security standards. This creates a systemic and frequently underestimated vulnerability across the entire sector. The following analysis explores the scale of this problem with recent data, examines the unique architectural challenges inherent in manufacturing, presents an expert’s view on solutions, and discusses the future implications for the industry.
The Scope and Scale of the Vulnerability
The Underestimated Data Risk in Manufacturing
A growing body of evidence reveals that the threat posed by outdated forms is not a marginal issue but a widespread crisis. Recent studies indicate that roughly 85% of manufacturing organizations experienced a form-related security incident in the past two years. More alarmingly, 42% of these companies suffered a confirmed data breach originating directly from form submissions. These figures paint a stark picture of a pervasive threat vector that has been allowed to fester, often hidden in plain sight within systems considered stable or too complex to modify.
The significance of these breaches is amplified by the nature of the data being collected. While manufacturing may not be perceived as data-rich in the same way as finance or healthcare, its forms are conduits for exceptionally valuable information. An analysis of these forms shows that 58% gather financial records, 61% capture authentication credentials, and 36% process payment card information. Beyond these quantifiable metrics lies a vast, unquantified stream of intellectual property, including proprietary design specifications and detailed bills of materials, all flowing through these often-unprotected digital channels.
This situation has created a dangerous disconnect between the perceived risk and the reality of the data’s value. The manufacturing sector has historically focused its security efforts on protecting operational technology (OT) and production lines, often overlooking the administrative and logistical systems where these forms reside. In contrast to this perception, attackers recognize the immense value of the intellectual property and supply chain data being collected, making these legacy forms a prime target for exploitation and espionage.
Pervasive Threats Targeting Outdated Forms
The most vulnerable points of entry are often the most familiar and long-standing digital interfaces. Concrete examples abound, including warranty registration pages, Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) submission systems, and supplier onboarding portals that have been operational for over a decade. These systems were built for a different era of the internet, long before the sophisticated, automated attack tools of today became commonplace, and they have rarely been updated to modern security specifications.
The threats exploiting these vulnerabilities are not sophisticated zero-day attacks but rather common, well-understood exploits that legacy systems are ill-equipped to handle. Data shows that 61% of manufacturing organizations report significant malicious bot activity targeting their forms, and 47% have dealt with SQL injection attempts. These attacks are effective precisely because the underlying systems lack fundamental security controls.
At a technical level, the core problem is a deficit of basic digital hygiene. Many of these older form systems were designed without foundational protections like input sanitization, which validates and cleans data before it is processed. This absence makes them trivial to exploit with common attack scripts that probe for known weaknesses. Consequently, what should be routine digital interactions become high-risk transactions, turning essential business tools into liabilities.
An Expert’s View on Manufacturing’s Unique Challenges
According to Frank Balonis, CISO at Kiteworks, the manufacturing industry faces specific architectural problems that compound these vulnerabilities. The sector’s digital landscape is not a monolithic entity but a complex patchwork of disparate systems. Forms are not isolated but are deeply embedded across Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), supplier portals, and various customer-facing platforms, creating a fragmented and inconsistent security posture.
This complexity stems from decades of technological evolution. Many of these systems were built at different times, by different development teams, and using different technology stacks. This has resulted in a mountain of technical debt, where each layer of customization adds another point of potential failure. As Balonis notes, it is often impossible to simply add a modern security layer, like a Web Application Firewall (WAF), to a form buried deep within a 20-year-old customization without breaking critical business integrations that may no longer be fully understood.
Adding another layer of complexity is what can be termed the “Data Sovereignty Wrinkle.” A striking 80% of manufacturers rate data sovereignty as a critical business requirement, driven by global supply chains and stringent cross-border regulations. However, their reliance on legacy forms creates a significant governance gap between policy and practice. Corporate policies may mandate where data can reside, but a supplier portal running on a server of indeterminate location creates an enforcement nightmare, undermining compliance efforts and exposing the organization to legal and financial risk.
A Proactive Path Forward From Mitigation to Modernization
Looking ahead, it is clear that these forms are not going away; they are essential for communication and data exchange with suppliers, partners, and customers. Therefore, securing them is not merely a technical task but a core business imperative. The trend indicates that organizations must shift from a reactive posture, which only addresses breaches after they occur, to a proactive strategy that modernizes these critical digital touchpoints.
This transition is not without its challenges. Rebuilding legacy systems from the ground up is an arduous, expensive, and disruptive process. It demands significant cross-departmental coordination between IT, operations, and business units, and such projects often compete for budget and resources with immediate production priorities. The path of least resistance has often been to leave these systems untouched, but the rising number of security incidents shows this is no longer a tenable strategy.
A viable strategy for change involves a pragmatic, three-pronged approach. The first step is a comprehensive inventory of all forms, including those operating outside of central IT’s direct control in what is often called “shadow IT.” Second, organizations can implement “wrapping” or front-ending strategies, which place modern validation and security layers in front of existing legacy systems without requiring a complete rebuild. Finally, form security must be reframed as a core supply chain issue, recognizing that these digital interfaces are as critical to protect as any physical link in the value chain.
Ultimately, the path forward requires an incremental approach rather than a single, revolutionary overhaul. The process should begin by identifying the highest-risk forms—those collecting the most sensitive data or facing the most frequent attacks—and applying protective layers to them first. Over time, this targeted mitigation can evolve into a broader effort to build a more coherent and secure digital architecture, gradually paying down technical debt and reducing the organization’s overall attack surface.
Conclusion Securing the Digital Front Door
The analysis confirmed that legacy forms represented a critical, widespread, and often-ignored security vulnerability within the manufacturing sector. The intersection of aging technology, valuable data, and common attack vectors created a perfect storm for data breaches. It became evident that these were not isolated incidents but symptoms of a systemic issue rooted in decades of accumulated technical debt.
The organizations that successfully navigated this challenge were those that moved beyond a purely technical view of the problem. They recognized that securing these legacy data-entry points was a strategic imperative that strengthened supply chain integrity and built trust with partners and customers. Consequently, these forward-thinking companies gained a significant competitive advantage, while those that delayed action inevitably faced breaches that damaged their reputation and bottom line.
The warranty portal from 2008 continued to take submissions, a silent testament to digital persistence. This left industry leaders with the critical question of whether they truly knew what was happening to their data, not just as it was stored, but at the very moment it arrived.
