Top 5 Supply Chain Security Concerns and Best Practices to Address Them

Most of us in the Supply chain domain remember the 2020 SolarWinds security breach incident that trembled the industry and surfaced the potential impact of supply chain security vulnerability. The breach demonstrated how attackers can exploit the company’s network and security policy access to insert malicious code in its Orion’s product- the company’s NMS (Network Management System).

The pandemic landscape driven supply chain security threat has accelerated businesses to shift to the cloud framework which has become the breeding ground of cyber criminals. As the pandemic events timeline seems to unfold in its journey, so does the sophisticated attacks on the supply chain.

The current trend has brought new challenges to supply chai security that expose the vulnerable areas of this business vertical. While supply chain security specialists are consistently integrating innovative and advanced solutions to counteract against such threats, the understanding of these challenges still seems to be in its learning phase.

Let us walk through top 5 Supply chain security challenges that encompass this domain before addressing the best practices to avert them:

Top 5 Supply Chain Security Concerns
Finding the root cause of every problem begins with gaining insight into its chief concerns

While the average cost of data breach is estimated at a whopping $3.86 million and a major surge in the supply chain security vulnerabilities, it is no denying that a gamut of challenges is keeping the supply chain leaders across the industry verticals awake at night.

Below are five major concerns in the supply chain security that must be addressed right away:

1. Data locality

Data forms the most critical aspect of every industry. It exists at all the tiers of the organization’s supply chain which makes it pertinent to be located, categorized, allocated and protected irrespective of its location in the chain. The management of data becomes complicated in industries such as healthcare and financial services considering the massive amount of its existence and it poor structuring. This makes it crucial for data to be acquired, stocked, used, managed and monitored in accordance to the industrial, regional and government standards.

2. Data protection

While data forms the heart of every business, its security deserve to be controlled in motion and at rest at every cycle of the supply chain. Any tempering or loopholes in the data protection is a threat to the business finances and its reputation. This is why, data needs to be monitored and protected to avert breach at any point and node of the supply chain.

3. Data visibility and governance

With multi-enterprise operations, data facilitation is not just exchanged between different businesses but is also retrieved, viewed, collaborated and shared for various professional reasons. This makes data highly critical and exposed if left unmonitored. Data visibility and governance is a prime challenge in the supply chain security and its proper addressal defines the safety and security of the entire business chain.

4. Fraud prevention

An order-to-cash cycle encompasses receiving, processing, managing and completing the customer order, which undergoes data transfer at various levels. This might include paper or electronic format of data handling. Irrespective of the type of O2C cycle, each point of data exchange is an opportunity for data hackers to temper the data and penetrate into your system or network for malicious attack.

5. Third-party risk

With the increased sophistication in the technology, even the everyday services and products availability have witnessed a complete transformation of how are dealt with. This made supply chains to adopt tiers of suppliers in their data processing and transaction for procure, manage and deliver services and goods. These third-parties expose the enterprises to new and cutting-edge risk of data theft, malicious attempts and exploiting supply chain security.

The challenging part of maintaining supply chain security is that there is single point rule that can be followed or adhered to while giving it a functional definition, considering it a broad area of industry. It encapsulates both traditional physical threats and the sophisticated cyber threats covering finances, systems, network and reputation. However, adopting a functionally coordinated and multifaceted approach, supply chain security can be both monitored and protected.

Supply Chain Security Best Practices
The best supply chains are not just cost-effective and fast, they are also robust and adaptable

Supply chain operations boils down to making available whatever a customer needs at the right time, right place and at the right price. Any delay or disruption in this chain or its privacy compromises the integrity of the services or products and pose a dilapidating consequence on the operations, finances and reputation of the brand.

While there is no one panacea to protect the brand’s supply chain, adopting multiple security strategies to run the gauntlet controls in the process can help detect and avert potential nefarious incidents and aid in taking swift actions.

Here are a few strategic approaches that can benefit the organizational supply chain security:

• Evaluate the existing governance of security such as IT regulation, third-party risk and quantify the security program, security education and compliance.
• Perform penetration testing and vulnerability mitigation by identifying the fundamental security issues and then fixing the poor configuration, password, endpoints and networks.
• Implement digitization and modernization through shifting from the paper, fax or phone system to encryption, file access monitoring and tokenization methods of the technological world.
• Secure the information and data by permissioned control for the data visibility and exchange over networks.
• Perform third-part risk management by including end-to-end security. Enable this by identifying the critical assets of the business to understand the impact of risk if exposed to malicious threats and then provide end-to-end security according to the threat level.
• Prepare for the potential breach by incident response orchestrating and planning frequently to get a grasp on how to actually act in the face of a threat.

How Netrika assists the agility and adaptability in supply chain security?

Netrika, with its deep expertise in the physical and digital security trends and the skilled, certified forces to offer training in the domain, provides the CSCSS certification for professionals. We are a global leader in offering specialized training regimes from experts in the respective areas of specialization with comprehensive industry exposure.

Our supply chain management courses allow the participant to gain professional visibility and credibility while enhancing their marketability and job security across the globe. With an instructor-led supply chain security certification, Netrika empowers and generate awareness on the evolving risk landscape, assists in the professional growth while aiming at impeding security risks.