Does your organisation sell goods or services downstream along the supply chain? Do you rely on snappy, organised suppliers upstream in order to maintain operations? If you answered yes, then you ought to be keenly aware of risks involved along the supply chain.
With many businesses operating digitally in whole or in part today, cyber supply chain risk management has become a crucial subset of risk management that just about every organisation must consider carefully. The good news is that modern, intuitive software such as Risk Wizard can help ease the burden of cyber supply chain risk management. But how can you leverage software to mitigate risk?
Map Out the Cyber Supply Chain
The first step to understanding cyber supply chain risk is to identify it. Map out all of the suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers and/or end customers, and subcontractors as applicable to your business. This list can become quite large and unwieldy, especially when considering all subcontractors affiliated with downstream supply chain businesses, so exercise proper diligence to establish a reasonable scope.
Next, develop an inventory of the information systems used between your organisation and those of your business partners. What type of information is shared, what is its value, and where is the information stored?
Establish Cyber Supply Chain Risk Factors
Once you’ve mapped out all of your business partners and the cyber supply chain information systems that need to be considered, carefully go through each element that has been listed and determine the risks associated.
An example of cyber supply chain risk could include the improper storage of company-sensitive data, such as keeping sensitive customer data on non-encrypted networks or servers. A database of customer addresses and credit card information used for order deliveries, for example, should always be stored securely with minimal risk of a data breach.
In many cases, there are supply chain risk factors that your organisation can and must address. In some cases, however, outside organisations (in many cases, the Government) will step in to address and manage risk. For critical infrastructure, for example, the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 allows the Australian Government to manage the growing threats of sabotage, espionage, coercion, and foreign involvement in Australia’s critical infrastructure.
Create a Plan of Action
After establishing the cyber supply chain risk factors, it is important to develop reasonable, actionable, and proportional responses to address each risk that has been identified.
Although it is generally prudent to have restrictive (rather than loose) contracts or memorandums of understanding addressing cybersecurity expectations within the organisation, it is often best to not be overly restrictive.
Within your risk management software, tag individual risks with reasonable, actionable, and proportional measures. Software with built-in real-time notification features and emails to relevant stakeholders will be able to take off much of the burden from risk management personnel and can help immensely in this endeavour.
In general, a good set of principles to follow in Australia are the Cyber Security Principles. They can greatly assist with cyber supply chain risk management by aligning the organisation’s efforts to govern, protect, direct, and respond to cybersecurity threats and risks.
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