There’s an old security adage: a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The sentiment long predates Information and Communications Technology (ICT), but it’s never been more relevant. With modern ICT connecting millions of systems worldwide, there are exponentially more “links” to worry about. That’s especially true when we shift our focus from defending against external threats, which organizations have gotten pretty good at, to those originating inside an organization’s sphere of trust. Here, we have work to do — starting with the ICT supply chain itself.
Today’s supply chains are a modern marvel. Vast webs of suppliers, manufacturers, integrators, shipping carriers, and others allow vendors to build ICT products more cost-effectively and to quickly deliver them to customers anywhere. But modern supply chains also increase the number of parties with access to those products — and the number of potential weak links that cybercriminals could seek to exploit. By targeting an organization’s hardware or software supply chain, hackers can compromise an ICT product before it’s even deployed. And, since that product is coming from a supplier the target implicitly trusts, the compromise may go undetected until it’s too late.