The cybersecurity challenges of the supply chain: Navigating risks in a hyper-connected, emerging-tech world

In the current digital environment, supply chains are essential to national security, vital infrastructure and international trade. They have, however, also emerged as one of the most often used attack methods in cybersecurity. Cybercriminals using ransomware to attack third-party vendors or nation-state actors inserting backdoors in software updates are just two examples of how supply chain breaches may quickly spread throughout entire economies, governments and industries.

High-profile events such as the Colonial Pipeline attack and the SolarWinds leak have severely exposed the vulnerabilities. Supply chain cyberattacks are carried out by nation-state adversaries, espionage operators, criminals or hacktivists to compromise contractors, systems, businesses and suppliers through the weakest links. These assaults frequently succeed by taking advantage of suppliers’ lax security procedures, utilizing insider threats or installing tampered or fake hardware and software.

Third-party involvement in breaches as hackers increasingly infiltrate managed services, software upgrades and vendors in order to get around essential safeguards. The scope of the issue is highlighted by recent statistics. Nearly 90% of IT professionals surveyed feel their software supply chains pose significant risks and more than 70% believe that current application security technologies are insufficient.

Read more at GovCon Wire