Remote-Service & Cybersecurity: Why secure remote maintenance is becoming a strategic issue

With the increasing networking of machines and digital services, the importance of secure remote access is also growing. This is why cybersecurity is becoming a strategic issue for furniture manufacturers and the role that modern remote service concepts have to play.

Cybersecurity in furniture production: Why secure remote maintenance is becoming a strategic issue

The digitalization journey continues in the wood and furniture industry. Machines, software and production processes are more networked today than they were just a few years ago. Anything that enables companies to be more transparent, efficient and flexible simultaneously increases the potential for attacks by cyber-criminals.

The focus has long since been expanded and now goes beyond merely office workstations or company servers. Even production plants and industrial networks are increasingly being targeted by attackers. The consequences range from production downtime and data losses to significant financial losses. As such, cybersecurity is increasingly becoming a management task for the entire production workflow rather than simply a question for IT. Recent studies also underscore the significance of this topic: According to data from IBM, in 2025 the manufacturing industry became the world's most frequently attacked industry for the fifth successive year, accounting for around 27.7% of all cyber-attacks investigated. Common entry points were public applications, compromised access data and inadequately secured remote access.*

Between availability and security

Despite the risks, digital services are almost indispensable in modern production environments. Software updates, remote diagnostics and support from service experts enable faster response times and help keep machine availability high —

but this is exactly where the challenge lies. The more important digital connections become, the more the question of how these access points can be secured comes to the fore.

The European Union has already responded to this development. The Cyber Resilience Act created binding requirements for the cybersecurity of digital products for the first time. The goal is to anchor cybersecurity more strongly throughout the life cycle of hardware and software and to better protect companies and users. The Cyber Resilience Act has been in force since December 2024 and will take effect gradually.

For manufacturing companies, this means that security considerations will be even more strongly embedded in investment and operational decisions in future. Solutions that facilitate digital services without sacrificing control over sensitive production environments are particularly sought after.

Secure remote maintenance as part of modern production concepts

Given the background, securing remote service access is becoming an increasingly important topic. Remote maintenance offers companies considerable benefits but requires that connections to machines be made transparent, traceable and controllable.

In sR Bridge, HOMAG has developed a solution to tackle precisely this issue. The hardware creates a direct connection between the machine and HOMAG Remote Service and has been designed with the current data protection requirements and future regulatory requirements in mind.

A crucial aspect of the solution is how access is controlled. Users decide for themselves when a connection is established and when it ends. The solution also enables secure download and installation of software updates, plus remote support from service experts.

This approach is particularly interesting for companies with large machine pools, since it can often be challenging to integrate existing systems into modern service and safety concepts without unnecessarily impairing production workflows.

Cybersecurity becomes part of the production strategy

Discussions about cybersecurity have long since progressed beyond merely the IT department. With production workflows, machines and digital services now increasingly networked, this topic is becoming an integral part of modern production strategies.

Regardless of the size of the company or the degree of automation involved, for furniture manufacturers the question therefore increasingly arises as to how efficiency, availability and security can be combined. Secure remote maintenance has become an important component in relation to implementing digital services, while at the same time meeting the increasing requirements for data protection and cyber-resilience.

The need for action is real. According to Bitkom (source: Bitkom Wirtschaftsschutzstudie 2024 [Bitkom 2025 Economic Protection Study 2024]), 81% of German companies have recently been affected by data theft, industrial espionage or sabotage. In addition, some 65% of companies now believe their financial survival is threatened by cyber-attacks. Cybersecurity is therefore no longer an isolated IT topic but rather a key factor in the stability and future viability of companies. Source

For this reason, HOMAG has been working intensively for some years now to tackle the effects of new cybersecurity requirements on machines, production networks and service processes. The development of sR Bridge is part of this strategic focus. The goal is to provide customers with a remote maintenance solution that supports digital services, while meeting the most stringent requirements for data protection, transparency and cyber-resilience.

The focus is not just on protecting data and networks; it also extends to safeguarding production capability. The better companies are able to protect their machines, communication channels and services, the lower the risk of unplanned downtime and the more reliably production processes can be managed.

HOMAG is one of the companies within the woodworking industry that has integrated cybersecurity considerations into the development of machine and service concepts from a particularly early stage. This is underscored by the high level of cyber-resilience of the current solutions and the close collaboration with technology partners and leading companies from the furniture industry. For many companies, cybersecurity will become a fundamental requirement rather than a success factor over the coming years. HOMAG views its role not just as a machine manufacturer, but as a partner that actively supports customers in this journey.