How To Safeguard Your Supply Chain From Cyber Threats

Technology has connected the business world like never before. Businesses can scale and grow immensely in a short period and serve their clients and customers in ways we never thought possible.   

Such hyperconnectivity has opened new doors to a more integrated and seamless world. However, that door can swing both ways.   

With businesses going digital, they also expose themselves to cybersecurity vulnerabilities. In specific, supply chain attacks have been growing in prevalence in the past year and have become worrisome. Such attacks can trigger a chain reaction— one attack on a single supplier can compromise a network of businesses and providers.  

That said, you must safeguard your supply chain from cyber-attacks. Here are some strategies to follow.   

  • Secure Software Systems  

Switching from traditional technology and processes is a gradual transition but a critical one. By moving to modern software, your company sets up secure data movement within your supply chain— external trading partners, customers, and suppliers.   

Bringing processes and software up to date can give you access to data security mechanisms such as tokenization, encryption, data loss prevention, and file access alerts and monitors.  This shift not only enhances security but also supports the future of supply chains by ensuring that sensitive data is protected across the entire network. Additionally, modern systems enable more efficient data management and analysis, providing deeper insights that can optimize operations and prevent vulnerabilities from being exploited.

For existing systems, you can catch low-level security vulnerabilities through regular scanning and penetration testing. You can use these outcomes to fix issues such as securing networks and endpoints, repairing vulnerable database configurations, and updating poor password policies.   

These quick and seemingly small wins can significantly reduce your risk exposure without adding downtime or making your work less productive. Once you take care of the basics, you can hire pen testing experts to spot advanced threats in your supply chain security systems and software.   

If you’re looking for a reliable provider of supply chain software solutions, consider Softeon and other similar apps. It is a global warehouse management company and a long-time provider of innovative and secure supply chain solutions and management systems. Softeon supply chain software allows for a safe and flexible integrated system across suppliers and businesses, delivering success every time.   

  • Do Risk Assessments For New Suppliers  

When entering into a new partnership with a supplier, you must know where they stand in cybersecurity.   

Determine what controls they have in place and the policies and processes they use to ensure that data is well protected. If you’ll be sharing any data with your suppliers, such as sensitive customer data, you need to ensure that it will stay safe and secure.   

In addition, it’s a good idea to consider how major your partnership with the supplier will be. Will they assist you only on an ad hoc basis or become a part of your immediate supply chain? All suppliers will need to be vetted. However, those playing an integral role in your supply chain will carry more risk and require more in-depth assessment and caution. So, be careful with who you partner with.

  • Train Your Employees  

Human error is still the number one cause of cyberattacks. Thus, it’s one of the most critical elements to address.   

Employees fall into the tricks of cybercriminals, thereby accidentally permitting the latter access to your supply chain ecosystem via phishing or scam emails and other forms of trickery.   

To prevent these incidents, your staff should know the common cyber-attack methods. Their knowledge will allow them to identify and report breach attempts instead of falling victim to them.   

And while it’s vital to foster a culture of cybersecurity awareness within your organization, you should encourage employee training throughout your supply chain.   

So, consider sharing your employee training resources with suppliers to help them educate their staff around cyber risks.  

  • Identify Leaks On Vendor Data 

Did you know that most recorded data breaches were caused by a third party? That said, you want to focus on mitigating third-party breaches that can result in attacks on the supply chain and reducing incidents on the overall data breach.   

You can reduce third-party breaches by remediating leaks on essential information before cybercriminals discover them. Information breach allows cybercriminals to hideously initiate attacks on supply chains because they will utilize the loopholes in the security of the target ecosystem.   

To help you prevent such, you can hire expert services on data leak management to entrust your organization’s data leak remediation efforts and monitoring to security experts. Such a versatile support network speeds up your supply chain security upgrade and becomes more cybercrime-proof than before.   

Conclusion  

Disruptions in the supply chain can ripple across entire industries. As the business world becomes more interconnected, these cyber threats become increasingly worrisome. That said, you’ll have to implement the above tips and other supply chain security best practices to ensure that your organization and business partners remain safe and secure.