Supply Chain Cyber Security Risk Report
All organizations first build frameworks for their supply chain since it helps them clear the environment by which they supply chain moves along. The connectivity between organization vender and the supply chain tends to be high and sensitive. Sensitivity comes in since if the string were insecure, it would lead to a possible attack. Thus, it’s always essential to understand how each product gets related to the outside world. Company’s priority has and will still be maintaining the safety and reliability of all vital infrastructures. This is because of the high connectivity between systems and the assets and the cycle of product delivered.
Over the years, there have emerged new threats known as cybersecurity which have posed as a vital risk to the reliability and quality of most infrastructures. Cybersecurity challenges have come from phishing hacking denial of services with its systems. However, there has emerged a new area of cybersecurity. The field has come from the supply chain where the integrity of most software’s and hardware’s is getting compromised during the supply chain. Software’s may have several challenges like it may get tampered with, or may contain unstable, rogue or failing functionality. In the supply chain, a lousy code may get inserted to the software before it reaches its utility storage. Moreover, back doors and killer switches can get built-in some software’s or hardware’s to enable them to get remotely accessed where data gets stolen, or even the system get disabled. All these situations can know to happen in the supply chain where traditionally it wasn’t considered as a venerable place.
Furthermore, the procurement field has a specific reason to look at cybersecurity threats seriously. Although procurement and its online mode have many advantages, it has also seen a growing figure when it comes to digital vulnerabilities as a result of cybersecurity threats. The supply tends to get trusted with a lot of sensitize data like names, phone numbers, social security, address and security numbers. If at any chance this ting were to move to the wrong hand the company may suffer the loss of custom, closure, federal investigation and bankruptcy. Thus procurement officials should take care since cyber-attack could breach purchase orders and invoices, which will allow attackers to control and disrupt the business (Colicchia et al., 2019). Supply chain poses a lot of security concerns like inventory theft, smuggling where goods get smuggled in the supply chain and also physical device tampering by individuals in the chain.
In risks involved in the supply chain, several mitigations measures can get put in places. Foremost, the government can put in place cybersecurity initiatives and policy review that would direct funding that could help in finding ways to help in supply chain risk (Colicchia et al., 2019). Additionally, it would aid in building resilient cyber systems that would help in ensuring security from supply chain attacks. Furthermore, institutions can implement ways that would help in vulnerability management in the supply chain. Additional, institutions should concentrate on look at things involved in the supply chain to find out the risk areas like where the software got coded. Moreover, the organizations should employ enough experts that understand cyber risk so that they can help defend against the threat and find ways that make the organizations cyber resiliently.
Additionally, organizations should team up with cybersecurity firms to get useful and automated malware protection against threats. Moreover, cyber firms should have principles where they create software that helps in supply chains protection. Besides, firms should adopt a small supplier base where they will have control of their suppliers (Koberg & Longoni, 2019). Moreover, they should have a culture where they conduct audits on the supplier’s firms to find where they abide by the given security protocols. Besides that, the system in the supply chain should have security features built into systems. The features include check digits which detect and keeps track of unauthorized logins into a code. Moreover, there should have test processes to harden the security of the systems. Lastly, the firms should conduct education to employees, have security policies and also adopt sophisticated system administration.
There several best practice in the supply chain. Some of the activities and practices involve getting to know all the actors, processes and elements in a supply chain to be aware of what is happening in the supply chain (Wang et al., 2017). Moreover, organizations should limit the exposure and access within the chain. Furthermore, the information should get shared in strict limits and also there should be a regular supply chain training management and awareness. Besides that, firms should use defensive design for their software and process, and they should also strengthen their delivery mechanism.
References
Colicchia, C., Creazza, A., & Menachof, D. A. (2019). Managing cyber and information risks in supply chains: insights from an exploratory analysis. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal.
Koberg, E., & Longoni, A. (2019). A systematic review of sustainable supply chain management in global supply chains. Journal of cleaner production, 207, 1084-1098.
Wang, L., Foerstl, K., & Zimmermann, F. (2017). Supply Chain Risk Management in the Automotive Industry: Cross-Functional and Multi-tier Perspectives. In Dynamic and Seamless Integration of Production, Logistics and Traffic (pp. 119-144). Springer, Cham.