SUPPLY CHAIN CYBERSECURITY
Supply chain cybersecurity should not be taken lightly. While you might be able to adequately monitor and protect your own IT with robust firewalls and state-of-the-art endpoint security, your supply chain cybersecurity is another story altogether. Nowadays, we live in an always-on, always-connected world, and the length and depth of your supply chain might be difficult to ascertain and at the very least challenging to control. But that’s what you need to do. Take control of your supply chain cybersecurity.
WHEN DID SUPPLY CHAIN HACKING START?
The hacking of Texas-based technology supplier, SolarWinds, in 2019 brought cybersecurity concerns to a head. But that wasn’t the first major threat to the security of complex supply chains. In 2013, U.S. retailer, Target, reported that hackers had stolen credit and debit card information of more approximately 40 million customers, making the breach one of the biggest ever in the retail industry. The total cost of the breach to the company was a whopping $202 million. Then in 2017, American credit firm Equifax was attacked, resulting in the compromise of the private records of about 148 million U.S. citizens and those of 15 million Brits. And there have many more incidents of hacking that have exposed the vulnerability of supply chain IT and cause severe data loss and compromise.
WHAT FORM DO THE BREACHES TAKE?
Security breaches on supply chain networks take multiple forms but often include one or more of:
- third-party credentials being stolen
- malicious code being inserted into third-party applications or hardware
- attacks on vulnerable software and applications
HOW DO I CIRCUMVENT A SUPPLY CHAIN BREACH?
As said, because of the complexity of many supply chains, their IT can be challenging to both monitor and protect. At a basic level, you need to implement vulnerability scanning and management, effective endpoint security, plus ensure that vendors adhere to your IT policies and governance. However, to have real protection, you will need to apply advanced threat intelligence that monitors hackers and their chatter on the cyber-underground and correlates this noise with information about vulnerabilities and indicators of compromise in your own IT systems. That way, you can harden your business and your supply chains against the threat of a cyberattack.
THREAT INTELLIGENCE IN ACTION
In the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) report entitled “2020 in Review: Data Breach Report,” the organisation revealed that in 2019 there were 694 supply chain attacks on business in the United States alone. The same report claimed that over 300 million individuals were affected by data breaches in the U.S. in 2020. Legacy approaches to managing supply chain cybersecurity are no longer effective. The key to success is to have real-time visibility and prioritize new data using automation. Effective threat intelligence solutions can surreptitiously crawl the Dark Web, Deep Web, and Surface Web for data, anything from stolen credentials to corporate documents. And automation is essential – if you want to strengthen your supply chain security, that is.
I KNOW HOW TO HELP
Threat intelligence is only one piece of the puzzle and an effective solution to supply chain cybersecurity means taking a hands-on approach. With over 20 years of experience in professional business IT management and risk mitigation, I believe that I know the business and know how to help. For starters, you can do these things:
- maintain a strict list of third-party hardware providers
- identify the devices and providers that are business-critical
- conduct a risk assessment on each and every device, technology and provider
That way, you will know who has access to want and what your supply chain cybersecurity vulnerabilities are – within your own IT infrastructure. Need more ideas, simply give me a shout.