When Your Aluminum Factory Gets a Cybersecurity Checkup

Picture this: a sprawling facility in Cisterna di Latina, Italy, where aluminum billets are cast, extruded, and shaped into profiles that end up in everything from skyscrapers to window frames. The furnaces roar. The presses pound. And somewhere in the background, ones and zeros are quietly flying between sensors, controllers, and production systems — because even a 40-year-old aluminum foundry runs on software these days.

That's where things get interesting. And potentially dangerous.

Indinvest LT, one of Italy's top manufacturers of aluminum billets and extrusions, has been investing in modernization for years. But as production lines get smarter and more connected, they also become more exposed. A hacker isn't going to melt your furnace remotely — but they could shut down your entire extrusion line, scramble your quality control data, or hold your operations hostage while you figure out what went wrong.

So Indinvest LT did what any forward-thinking manufacturer would do: they called in the experts. Specifically, Rockwell Automation — the world's largest industrial automation company — and H.S. Automation, a gold-level OEM that knows aluminum production inside and out.

The mission? A comprehensive cybersecurity risk assessment of Indinvest LT's operational technology environment. Think of it as a full-body scan for the factory's digital nervous system. Rockwell's OT Cybersecurity Assessment Suite, which aligns with industry standards like IEC 62443 and NIST guidelines, will systematically identify vulnerabilities, analyze threats, evaluate existing security controls, and prioritize what needs fixing first.

"We've built our reputation on innovation," said Silvia Pellizzon, plant manager at Indinvest LT. "Now we need to make sure our cybersecurity keeps pace with our technology."

The assessment isn't just about finding problems — it's about building a roadmap. A structured view of where the risks are, what to do about them, and how to keep operations running smoothly while the digital world keeps evolving. And because H.S. Automation has worked with Indinvest LT for years, they bring the kind of on-the-ground knowledge that no generic cybersecurity checklist can replace.

In an era when manufacturing systems are more connected than ever, cybersecurity isn't an IT problem anymore. It's an operations problem. And for Indinvest LT, it's just another part of staying competitive — one risk assessment at a time.