As technology gets more complicated, so does keeping it safe.
For companies engaged in manufacturing or distributing goods, supply chains represent a vital lifeline.
In today’s world, a lot of the biggest risks to supply chains come from the digital realm. Hackers and cybercriminals can take advantage of weaknesses in technology. They target both the physical equipment and the software used in supply chains. This can affect everything from how products are designed and where they come from to how they’re made, shipped, and paid for.
Among the various dangers that businesses must be cautious of, one frequently disregarded hazard is the threat to the supply chain.
In this blog post, we’ll delve deeper into cyber supply chain risk management, exploring all its aspects and providing strategies for mitigating its risks.
Let’s get started.
What Is Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management?
The consequences are severe when the cyber supply chain faces disruptions through a cyberattack. This ranges from delays or complete halts in business operations to further cyberattacks affecting vendors, customers, or other connected businesses.
Risks associated with this disruption include data loss, operational shutdowns, financial losses, damage to reputation, compromise of product safety, and even potential loss of life.
Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management (C-SCRM) is about ensuring that the supply chain’s technology parts are safe and secure. This involves figuring out, checking, and reducing risks at each important stage. It’s an essential business process, especially now that cyber threats are becoming more common in the business world.
Let’s get into a more detailed explanation as to why cyber security risk management is important for your business.
Why Is Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management Important?
In today’s digital landscape, organizations lack control or visibility over all the digital supply systems they are linked with.
In such a situation, supply chain risk management becomes all the more important. Here’s why:
- The downstream effects of a cyber attack have become more intense today than it was a few years ago.
- Moreover, relying only on traditional security measures isn’t enough to safeguard a digitally connected infrastructure.
This underscores the need for a broader cybersecurity strategy that provides processes, tools, technologies, and architectures that could improve security.
Before we get into the best practices to safeguard your business against cyberattacks, let’s first understand the different types of cyber supply chain attacks.
Types Of Cyber Supply Chain Attacks
Supply chain attacks can be categorized into several groups, each with different objectives.
1. Network Supply Chain Attack
This type of attack occurs when a support and operations company is targeted by cybercriminals, and the impact extends to the networks of interconnected companies.
2. Software Supply Chain Attack
In such attacks, hackers infiltrate a vendor’s network and compromise the vendor’s software by inserting malicious code or backdoors, which can be exploited later on.
3. Hardware Supply Chain Attack
Another form of supply chain attack revolves around exploiting vulnerable hardware, such as industrial control devices or routers. Much like in a software supply chain attack, a malicious actor compromises the hardware produced by a vendor.
4. Cyber Attack on Supply Chain Businesses
While the above three types of attacks are aimed at exploiting the digital supply chain, cyber attacks can also disrupt the physical supply chain.
These attacks often target conventional supply chain businesses, such as transportation companies or food suppliers.
Now that we have a clear understanding of the different types of cyber-attacks, let us quickly get into some of the most effective strategies to combat such attacks.
Ways To Safeguard Against Supply Chain Cyber Attacks
Identifying supply chain cyber attacks can be challenging however it is not impossible to achieve.
Read through the following measures to understand how cyber security supply chain risk management can be made possible.
1. Incorporate cybersecurity supply chain risk management throughout the organization.
- Consider forming a Cyber supply chain risk management council.
- This council can include executives, IT, cybersecurity, operations, risk management, and legal personnel to identify risks and create and assess mitigation strategies.
2. Come up with a proper security plan
- Create strategies to facilitate cyber risk management, encompassing governance, protocols, policies, tools, and workflows.
- Clarify roles and duties and form interdisciplinary teams. This should involve procedures for testing and setting up service-level agreements.
3. Identify all employees, contractors, vendors, and suppliers who have system access
- With vendors in particular, it’s crucial to know which vendors are being utilized and the specific product, service, or role they offer to your organization.
- This assessment can pinpoint the risks associated with each vendor based on significant factors like the level of access they have to your system and the type of data they can access or handle.
4. Include the suppliers/vendors into recovery activities
- Your vendors should play a significant role in your recovery strategy to the extent that they can affect or influence specific business activities or services.
- This involvement should begin early in the planning phases and continue throughout the entire process, including testing and recovery drills.
- Key steps include establishing clear roles and responsibilities and maintaining regular communication.
5. Continuously monitor and assess
- Your organization needs to monitor the measures employed by your supplier/vendor to safeguard the goods or services provided.
- A robust assessment program typically involves providing evidence of a point-in-time assessment annually or semi-annually.
Cybersecurity threats within the supply chain are widespread and continuously evolving. Following these measures is crucial to safeguarding your team from third-party risks and potential threats posed by cybercriminals.
FAQs: Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management: Understanding the basics
Why is cyber supply chain risk management important?
Cyber supply chain risk management is crucial for safeguarding your business against cyber threats that can cause hindrance in operations and specific tasks. The security of the data also goes down which in turn brings down the reputation of the organisation.
What are some of the most common threats to supply chain?
Some of the most common threats include supply chain attacks, malware infiltration, breaches in data, insider threats and vulnerabilities of the vendors.
What measures can organisations take to prevent supply chain cyber threats?
Businesses can implement effective measures such as vendor risk management, training for cyber security and enforcing strict security protocols.
Conclusion
Where cybersecurity was previously viewed as the responsibility of IT departments alone, it has now become a company-wide threat that demands attention and action across all levels of the organization.
Combating supply chain cyber attacks requires a thorough and proactive cybersecurity strategy.
This involves constantly evaluating and enhancing network and vendor security, offering appropriate training, and implementing advanced approaches.
We trust that this blog has provided you with a comprehensive understanding of cyber supply chain risk management and the best strategies that you could inculcate to safeguard your business against cyber threat.
