Best practices for a secure supply chain

Posted on: March 19th, 2021 onPlatinum

Your business’ cybersecurity posture must prioritise detection, evaluation and mitigation of risks posed by your supply chain. Your security must be upgraded regularly to better prepare for any worst-case scenarios.

It should come as no surprise that a vulnerable third party your company deals with can weaken your supply chain as well. Although you can’t control a third party’s cyber security, it must be taken seriously since a security compromise at their end could put your business at risk.

Always remember that no matter how secure you think you are, dealing with an unsecured vendor can severely damage your business’ reputation and financial position.

Recommended security practices

Prevention is always better than a cure, especially when managing data, systems, software, and networks. By proactively adopting best practices, it is certainly possible to enhance your supply chain’s security. Some of these practices include:

• Security awareness training: You must educate all employees about how even a minor mistake on their part could severely compromise security. Since employees are usually the first line of defence against cyber attacks, it is important that they are given adequate training to identify and avoid any potential threats. Drafting and implementing an effective security awareness training program should not be a one-time affair. It should take place at regular intervals to ensure all stakeholders are on the same page.
• Endpoint protection: Endpoint protection ensures that end-user gadgets are protected against nefarious cyber criminals. Cyber criminals are getting more adept at identifying the most vulnerable point within your network. In most cases, it turns out to be an end-user device on your network or even devices on your third-party partner’s network. Therefore, securing endpoints is crucial to reinforcing the security of your business and your supply chain.
• Access control: Access control lets only verified users access your business data, including users that are part of your supply chain. With robust authentication and authorisation protocols in place, you can minimise the chances of sensitive data getting compromised. While authentication verifies whether a user is who they claim to be, authorisation verifies whether a user has access to a particular type of data. Hence, both hold equal importance when implementing a robust access control strategy.
• Monitoring: Given the invasive and inevitable nature of security threats, a fast reaction time is fundamental to the effectiveness of your supply chain security. Automated and consistent monitoring is vital for quick detection and response to an attack. You need to gather and dissect relevant data to recognise suspicious activity or changes within your organisation. You can pre-define acceptable behaviour on the monitoring system, and if breached, the system will trigger an alert.
• Patch management: Security gaps left wide open due to inept patch management can leave your business vulnerable to cyber attacks. Whenever a new patch gets delivered, you must deploy it immediately. Failing to do so could give cyber criminals a clear passage to circumvent your defences.
• Routine scanning: Routine vulnerability scanning is a coordinated process to test, recognise, examine, and reveal potential security threats (internal and external). Automating these scans ensures they are conducted accurately and regularly without investing a lot of time and effort will work wonders.

Adopt these best practices before it’s too late

When it comes to supply chain security, the practices mentioned above are just the tip of the iceberg of what you should do to avoid security incidents. Enlisting the help of an MSP can help you stay ahead of the curve since they have the experience and expertise to shore up your business’ security.

Get in touch to know more about safeguarding your supply chain from looming cyber threats.