Salt Lake City Manufacturers Face Seasonal Cyber Threats as Summer Winds Down
August might feel like the tail end of vacation season, but for Salt Lake City’s manufacturers, it’s prime time for cybercriminals. As your team comes back from time off, hackers are already a step ahead—exploiting travel-related habits and downtime to launch smarter, more deceptive phishing attacks.
New data from security vendors like ProofPoint and Check Point show that phishing attacks rise sharply in summer, especially in late July through August. And if your plant runs on lean staffing, this is the kind of seasonal risk that can slip past the radar.
If you're relying on managed IT services or an IT support provider in Salt Lake City, now is the time to ask how they're preparing your manufacturing network to handle the phishing surge.
Why the Increase in Risk?
Cybercriminals are getting clever. They know your employees are booking trips, checking personal email on shop floor tablets, or skimming work emails while waiting in TSA lines. That’s how phishing scams get through.
Check Point Research reported a 55% spike in new travel-related domains registered in May 2025 versus the same time last year. Of the 39,000+ new domains created, one in every 21 was malicious. Many mimicked common hotel booking or vacation rental platforms—designed to fool users into clicking from a work computer.
Back-to-school season is another sneaky attack vector. Fake university payment requests, tuition notices, or textbook order scams show up in inboxes and compromise accounts that may be linked to your business network.
In a typical manufacturing environment—with shared devices, OT/IT crossover, and little room for downtime—a single phishing link can derail operations.
What Salt Lake City Manufacturers Can Do About It
Yes, artificial intelligence is making our tools smarter. But it’s also giving hackers the power to craft more convincing phishing emails. That’s why your team’s first line of defense isn’t just a firewall—it’s awareness.
If you want strong cybersecurity for your Salt Lake City manufacturing business, here’s where to start:
- Look closely at all emails. Don’t trust anything just because it looks professional. AI-generated phishing emails often avoid typos and use realistic branding. Always verify the sender and hover over links to check where they lead.
- Verify URLs. Misspelled domains or strange extensions like .biz, .site, or .click are red flags.
- Manually navigate to websites. Don’t click through from emails—go directly to the site yourself, especially when booking travel or updating account info.
- Enable Multifactor Authentication (MFA). Even if a hacker gets your login, MFA stops them from moving forward.
- Avoid public Wi-Fi without protection. If you or your employees use Wi-Fi on the road, make sure it's behind a VPN to protect your credentials.
- Keep personal and business accounts separate. That includes not opening personal email on company devices, especially those connected to your ERP or MES.
- Ask your IT provider about endpoint detection. EDR (endpoint detection and response) can alert your team the moment suspicious activity starts—so small issues don’t become full-blown breaches.
Don’t Let a Phishing Email Bring Down Your Shop Floor
Phishing scams are no longer just badly written emails with obvious red flags. With AI behind the wheel, these attacks are laser-targeted, timed for maximum impact, and able to mimic trusted vendors or platforms.
At Qual IT, we provide proactive IT services, cybersecurity, and EDR support for Salt Lake City manufacturers. We understand how downtime on a machine can cost you thousands—and how one click from the wrong email can get you there fast.
Let’s get ahead of it.
Click here to book your free network assessment and let’s make sure your team and systems are ready for whatever August brings.
