Made in Iowa, The Manufacturing Podcast
Sep 17, 2026 · 38 min · 18 segments
Manufacturing is now the most-hacked industry, and the risks extend far beyond office computers. Leisa Fox talks with Sheldon Speers, president and founder of Tenax Solutions, about protecting…
Well, and I think to illustrate the challenge and the scope of a cybersecurity breach, imagine, and this happened back in 21, one of our largest grain co-ops at harvest had a huge breach.
You've got the farmers bringing the grain in you're trying to track what's coming in, what's going out.
And they said they had to defer to 70s processes, which was pen and paper during harvest time.
And they're out of japan it's a multi-billion dollar company 61 million dollar loss you have to feel that they were fairly savvy and they kind of knew what they were doing if a loss like that can happen to such a robust company we are all vulnerable
yeah yeah absolutely i mean i can think of another one um here in town i can't say the name it was a friend of mine who worked there but they were losing they they got breached stopped operations and they were losing two million dollars a day in fines um from not being able to then you know meet the contract yeah so that's another thing other than just your own production but the fees and fines that you could potentially pay based off of that.
If you're uncertainty and doubt, but it's just the reality of, of where we're at today.
And attackers know that attackers are smart enough to know that manufacturing, like once you're down, you're going to pay anything to get, you know, you'll easily give a million dollars in Bitcoin losing 2 million a day.
A leader needs to say, I'm committed to fixing this because a lot of times it's like buying insurance, right? You are betting that it's going to happen and making sure that the integrity of your company is preserved.
So talk about leadership says, yep, we're going to take a proactive approach to cybersecurity.
Well, and I think to illustrate the challenge and the scope of a cybersecurity breach, imagine, and this happened back in 21, one of our largest grain co-ops at harvest had a huge breach.
You've got the farmers bringing the grain in you're trying to track what's coming in, what's going out.
And they said they had to defer to 70s processes, which was pen and paper during harvest time.
And they're out of japan it's a multi-billion dollar company 61 million dollar loss you have to feel that they were fairly savvy and they kind of knew what they were doing if a loss like that can happen to such a robust company we are all vulnerable
yeah yeah absolutely i mean i can think of another one um here in town i can't say the name it was a friend of mine who worked there but they were losing they they got breached stopped operations and they were losing two million dollars a day in fines um from not being able to then you know meet the contract yeah so that's another thing other than just your own production but the fees and fines that you could potentially pay based off of that.
If you're uncertainty and doubt, but it's just the reality of, of where we're at today.
And attackers know that attackers are smart enough to know that manufacturing, like once you're down, you're going to pay anything to get, you know, you'll easily give a million dollars in Bitcoin losing 2 million a day.
A leader needs to say, I'm committed to fixing this because a lot of times it's like buying insurance, right? You are betting that it's going to happen and making sure that the integrity of your company is preserved.
So talk about leadership says, yep, we're going to take a proactive approach to cybersecurity.
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