Most employees fear robot hacking, but believe they should be used more in production

A recent Kaspersky study on the consequences of automation and increased use of robots showed the growing level of robotization in companies but highlighted the increased number of cybersecurity risks this causes.

Today, 79% of employees believe that robots should be more widely used across different industries, however, 85% of them fear robot hacking.

Nowadays, robotics is being used to command industrial control systems, production processes and other information technology. It replaces manual labor, improving efficiency, speed, quality and performance. With this in mind, Kaspersky conducted a study to learn the opinion of employees of manufacturing companies and other large organizations around the world about the consequences of automation and increased use of robots. The goal was to gather employees’ thoughts about the security of robots and automated systems in their companies. The survey was conducted across 15 countries: USA, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Turkey.

Employees reported an increase in robotization levels in their companies over the last 2 years. Forty-one percent of employees said their organizations already use robots, and 29% of organizations plan to use them in the near future.
One of the findings in the research was that respondents believe robots can help industries increase economic benefits as well as saving people from dangerous duties.

This point of view is shared by more than half of the surveyed employees, as 52% think use of robots can accelerate and increase the efficiency of production processes and cut down costs, and 60% believe robotization can free people from hard or dangerous duties, reducing risks to life and health in the future. This, in turn, will help employees avoid routine and boring duties and retain more interesting and highly paid positions (36%).

More than one third of respondents consider that one of the key tasks that robots can successfully perform is to build a safe environment and reduce the likelihood of accidents due to human error. This point of view was shared by 36% of employees.

Another…