A U.S. company, Super micro, started by Taiwanese immigrants in 1993, produced server boards that faced the brunt of security compromise in 2015 by a number of major U.S. companies, including Amazon and Apple. Briefly stated, the chips looked to have been inserted by unknown parties—generally thought to be Chinese hackers with the purpose of infecting the servers with malware. And this massive IT security attack debacle is known to have been identified when Amazon bought Elemental, a video compression software business with contracts with significant U.S. defense intelligence organizations.
The Super micro example highlights the escalating difficulties and dangers associated with global supply chains, chief among which is the ease with which any component can be changed without leaving a trace and then accessed from a distance.
What should businesses do in reaction to a danger to the security of their supply chains?
Regrettably, there is both terrible news and worse news. The bad news is that supply chain protection should be the responsibility of third-party risk management, which is frequently underfunded, understaffed, and poorly supported. Frequently, an organization’s whole supply chain protection strategy consists of asking vendors to complete a printed checklist. That obviously doesn’t provide the necessary protection.
Further to this, businesses have no fail-safe choice to pursue without standardization on systems like blockchain and hyper ledger. So even if the third-party risk management team has full resources of financial, human, and otherwise, there has not been a set of steps that can be taken to completely safeguard the company against supply chain cybersecurity attacks.
How to mitigate supply chain cybersecurity attacks?
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Track down vendor data leaks
Unintentional releases of private information are known as data leaks. If these leaks are not fixed, cybercriminals may use them as a launchpad for supply chain assaults. Many vendors expose their own data leaks because they are ignorant of it. Vendor data leaks can be found and fixed by implementing a third-party data leak detection solution before they have a chance to become supply chain attacks.
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Implementing technology and protecting it from vulnerabilities
Several barriers should be built up around internal technology for the greatest outcomes. There are less odds of a threat penetrating key infrastructures as there are more layers in place.
Maintain your antivirus software’s updates so that it is informed of the most recent threats.
Multi Factor Authentication: According to Microsoft, multi-factor authentication can stop up to 99.9% of automated cybercrime, albeit occasionally being inconvenient. Also, it may detect unwanted access attempts fool-proofing your network security.
Deploy solutions for monitoring the cybersecurity attack surface – Solutions that require security go beyond internal technology. Technologies from external vendors are considerably more crucial to safeguard because they are the initial targets of a supply chain attack. A supply chain cybersecurity attack might potentially take advantage of any security flaws found in vendor technologies.
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Compile a list of all possible insider threats
Insider threats aren’t usually driven by nefarious motives. Most of the time, people are not aware of the dangers posed by their conduct. Training in cybersecurity attack danger awareness will weed out such gullible end users. Threats from hostile insiders might be challenging to spot. Because they can give threat actors the precise access they need to facilitate a software supply chain attack, they are also substantially more risky. Frequent employee surveys for feedback and a welcoming workplace environment will solve issues before they develop into aggressive insider threats.
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Recognize and safeguard resources that are at risk
Determine the precise resources that fraudsters are most likely to target. This response is not always obvious. Honeytokens could aid in locating the resources that crooks are most interested in. Discuss the advantages of using honeytokens with your vendors and urge their use. This will show you every cybersecurity attack surface in your supply chain that could be exploited.
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Reduce access to sensitive information
The first step is to locate every access point for sensitive data. You can use this to keep track of every employee and vendor using your sensitive resources right now. The network security surface for privileged access increases with the number of privileged access roles, hence the number of such accounts should be kept to a minimum. Given the possibility that vendors could become the initial targets of a supply chain attack, vendor access needs to be carefully examined. List every vendor who presently has access to your sensitive data, along with their levels of access.
By using questionnaires, you can learn more about how each provider handles and safeguards your sensitive data. After obtaining all relevant third-party access data, the culling procedure can start. Only the least amount of sensitive data necessary for them to provide their services should be accessible to service providers.
How Kodehash harnesses the power of risk management strategy to secure your supply chain?
You require a well-organised and well-funded third-party risk management staff to handle supply chain vulnerabilities. The team should frequently and early involve important suppliers. And to secure the entire supply chain, your technology team should consider blockchain and hyperledger technologies.
Kodehash, one of the best cybersecurity companies, assists your business by constantly checking for vulnerabilities and data leaks that could be exported during a supply chain cybersecurity attack. Our services enable businesses to fully take control of their third-party security.