Sony Corp.'s entertainment subsidiary emerged from its massive hacking scandal the worse for wear but ultimately victorious, releasing the controversial film "The Interview" online and in a limited box-office run and still managing to make $18 million over the four-day Christmas weekend after it was blasted for caving to cyberterrorists.

However, the real silver lining to come out of the scandal was the sobering affirmation for both the US government and private sector that we have long-term and persistent cyber enemies from anywhere in the world. And this affirmation should fast track -- in years, perhaps -- efforts to safeguard America's industrial infrastructure.

The truth is that the Guardians of Peace's cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment wasn't highly sophisticated. But the fact that a run-of-the-mill hack was able to completely cripple a Hollywood movie studio in such a high-profile and embarrassing fashion finally and rightfully put a mass spotlight on cybersecurity, an issue that has long warranted it.

For years, about a trillion dollars' worth of US industrial intellectual property and even military trade secrets have been siphoned off by spies and nation-state actors. But, the world be damned if we are going to be blackmailed into not playing our movies.

My sarcasm shouldn't downplay the seriousness of what occurred, notwithstanding the "Cyber Pearl Harbor" and "cyber warfare game-changer" rhetoric that flew around in the press. Our First Amendment rights were threatened, and the large-scale network intrusion did prove very damaging to Sony. While the repercussions will continue to play out, the attack should have sent chills down the spines of all industrial and manufacturing IT officers.

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A Kaspersky Lab global IT security analysis last year noted that IP loss affected one in every five surveyed manufacturing businesses, with internal operational information and customer data regularly snatched by cyber criminals. More alarming, though, was a willingness among survey respondents to accept some financial losses from cybercrime as a cost of doing business.

That resignation is striking and alarming in the rising age of networked manufacturing supply chains and IoT, as more things get interconnected. As end-to-end collaboration and data interchange systems grow in cyberspace, a renegade act of corporate terrorism could propagate up and down the supply chain and cripple everyone from the OEM to the low-tier supplier.

That's why the most sensitive companies running power plants, gas pipelines, and banking and trading systems, which are already all too familiar with advanced persistent cyber threats, must be joined by all other businesses large and small in fighting industrial terrorism with next-generation firewalls, network segmentation, contextually aware inspection, no-fly security zones, and other tools. The Sony affair illustrates just how vulnerable we -- as industry -- can be when we're not vigilant.

At his year-end press conference, Obama pledged to bolster the nation's cyber defenses in the wake of the Sony debacle. This should leave no doubt that industrial cybersecurity must be at the top of the priorities list for the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute, the government-academic-industry consortium created a year ago to accelerate US virtual-based product development, engineering, and production.

In fact, the DMDII is the perfect advanced cybersecurity incubator to complement work on advancing digital information flow, since it is supported by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which in a 2013 Obama executive order was tasked to create a framework for cybersecurity standards and best practices in the first place.

Playing the victim, Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton might've pulled histrionics when he described the hack as "the worst cyber attack in American history." Not for nothing, though, it's time for companies to get serious about cybersecurity.

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