Critical industries such as energy, logistics, finance, and manufacturing are finding themselves on the front line, with incidents now spilling far beyond IT departments into boardrooms, supply chains, and even national infrastructure.
The numbers paint a stark picture. In 2024, 67% of energy, oil and gas organisations worldwide were hit by ransomware, with recovery costs averaging $3.12 million per incident. Across Q2 2025 alone, around 1,600 ransomware incidents were publicly reported globally, with Europe accounting for roughly a quarter. The UK government’s own Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025 found that 43% of all UK businesses had experienced a breach in the past year, rising to 74% for large firms.
Meanwhile, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has responded to more than 200 “nationally significant” cyber incidents since September 2024, a sign of how serious the risks have become.
The growing link between geopolitics and cyber risk is clear. Recent years have seen ransomware cripple South Africa’s Transnet ports, forcing supply chain delays across continents, while the Colonial Pipeline hack in the US became a case study in how quickly cyberattacks spill into the physical world.
Closer to home, Jaguar Land Rover was forced to halt production in 2025 after a major supplier cyberattack, with losses running into millions and the UK government stepping in to assess national-level risks. Around the same time, a cyberattack on Collins Aerospace’s vMUSE check-in system disrupted operations at Heathrow, Berlin, and Dublin airports, grounding flights and exposing vulnerabilities in Europe’s aviation infrastructure.
The ripple effects have extended into retail and everyday life. Marks & Spencer, Harrods, and the Co-op Group all reported serious cyber incidents in 2025 that disrupted online orders, payment systems, and customer data services. Even the education and childcare sectors have become targets. A breach at a UK nursery chain exposed the personal data and images of over 8,000 children, and recent studies show that six in ten UK secondary schools have experienced a cyberattack in the past year.
As such, the ability not only to defend against attacks but to withstand and recover from them has become the new currency of survival. For industries under pressure, resilience is the difference between being offline for days or staying operational when it matters most.
Generic, off-the-shelf software often struggles here. Designed for broad user bases, it can leave blind spots, create dependency on vendor updates, and increase exposure to supply chain vulnerabilities. By contrast, bespoke systems allow resilience and security to be built into the foundations, mapped to real-world risks, supported by layered defence, and owned in a way that allows faster response when attacks occur.
Andy Brown, founder and director of bespoke software firm, Propel Tech, says: “Resilience has to be designed in from the start. When you build from security first principles, you can bake security not as an afterthought but as a first layer. For critical sectors, that’s the only safe route.”
Cyber resilience is no longer just an IT problem, it is a strategic and economic imperative. With ransomware in industrial and manufacturing settings rising 46% in the first quarter of 2025, and with UK energy demand forecast to double by 2050, the stakes could not be higher.
For business leaders in energy, logistics, manufacturing and beyond, the message is clear: the threat landscape is intensifying, and resilience is the only way forward. Choosing the right systems, whether modernised or newly built, will determine not only who survives, but who thrives.
