The cyber attack that recently targeted Breton, an Italian excellence in the design and manufacturing of stone processing machinery, represents a paradigmatic case of the structural vulnerability that characterizes the nation’s industrial fabric. This episode, far from being exceptional, manifests as an expression of a growing tendency that necessitates profound reflection on strategies for protecting corporate digital assets.
The intrusion into the information systems of the Treviso-based company has resulted, despite official reassurances regarding the protection of “strategic data,” in significant operational discontinuities: from the paralysis of administrative systems to the malfunctioning of automated warehouses, with consequent deceleration of the production chain. Furthermore, the detection of the attack, which occurred only after returning from the May 1st holiday break, highlights critical deficiencies in continuous monitoring protocols.
The National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN) has recently documented a concerning increase in vulnerabilities: 3,939 new CVEs qualified in March 2025, representing an increase of 553 units compared to the previous month. Concurrently, 28 ransomware attacks were registered, some directed against entities within the national Constituency, with particularly notable activity from groups such as RansomHub and Lockbit30.
In this scenario of escalating complexity, MicroCyber—the Italian European Digital Innovation Hub dedicated to cybersecurity—constitutes a strategic resource for the construction of effective digital resilience within the productive system. Its mission to promote information security and digitalization for micro and small enterprises and public entities, with particular attention to the Southern regions, emerges as an essential element to bridge the protection gap that currently characterizes numerous productive realities.
The Breton case demonstrates unequivocally that no actor within the productive system can consider itself immune from cyber threats. The increasing complexity of attacks, combined with their pervasiveness, necessitates the adoption of structured preventive strategies based on an integrated security approach that transcends the traditional separation between physical and digital dimensions.
Cybersecurity no longer represents a specialized ancillary domain but rather a constitutive dimension of corporate competitiveness and, by extension, of national economic sovereignty. From this perspective, Italian companies are called upon to radically reconsider their protection paradigms, recognizing proactivity and preventive investment as the cornerstones of an effective strategy.
Within this context, MicroCyber positions itself as a privileged interlocutor, capable of accompanying productive entities through this necessary transformational journey before additional critical events impose emergency interventions with significantly higher economic and reputational costs.
The question is not whether Italian companies will suffer cyber attacks, but rather when these will occur and how prepared they will be to confront them. The response to this interrogative will increasingly determine the capacity of the national productive system to maintain competitiveness in the global arena.
Technical IT Unit – National Agency for Microcredit
