When ransomware hits the fan: Navigating a ransomware attack in the manufacturing industry
Hadi Ghanbari, Kari Koskinen · Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases · 2025
This teaching case demonstrates the crucial role of cybersecurity incident management in ensuring business continuity and resilience of organizations. Considering the rise of large-scale and sophisticated cyberattacks, this case provides readers with a better understanding of incident management activities and their impact on organizations’ operations. We first introduce incident management and related terms and concepts such as business continuity and resilience. Next, we report how a European company, active in the manufacturing sector, responded to a recent ransomware attack. As such, this case provides readers with insider insights and lessons learned from a real-life incident management case. The paper demonstrates that, often companies have to adjust their cybersecurity incident response procedures on the spot and engage in ad hoc planning to deal with the dynamic nature of incidents. In addition, the case highlights the importance of the social and business dimensions of incident response processes.