BitSight: Effectively Managing Cyber Risk In Supply Chains

Organisations must begin the process of becoming more resilient and capable of defending themselves against unseen threats, with cybersecurity becoming such a prominent matter in all industries globally in the last few years. Supply chain risk management strategies must include cybersecurity now, or face losing significant amounts of money and business through damages.

A BitSight report has explored McKinsey & Company research to take a closer look into how organisations around the world have dealt with the growing threat of cybercrime.

Knowing what needs to be dealt with is key to success when creating a risk management strategy, but the issue throughout the industry tends to be a widespread failure to understand where to begin. 

Achieving true transparency throughout an entire supply chain network is very difficult to achieve, with many different points of contact involved. Proprietary data restrictions and the scope and scale of risk also needs to be considered. It can be very easy to overwhelm and overwork IT or cybersecurity teams when creating and working to risk mitigation plans.

It is clearly very easy to make it impossible for teams to address, quantify and mitigate cyber risks, but without these insights that transparency can provide, supply chains will be under constant threat of attack.

Security ratings are significantly effective to organisations in their bid to identify risky vendors and vulnerabilities in the supply chain. The ratings provide the ability to effectively streamline contingency planning and helps to put procedures in place to protect organisations from attacks and breaches in their networks.

Security ratings work similarly for businesses as credit scores do for individuals. CISOs can use these ratings to quickly and effectively communicate the size and severity of the risks posed to supply chains to members of the C-suite, the boardroom, or with any vendors in question. The data provided by these can simplify conversations and drive easier decision making for everyone.

Rated on a scoring system that ranges between 250 and 900, the ranking is higher for vendors who pose less threat. BitSight research discovered that vendors with a security rating of 500 are five times more likely to be breached by cyber attacks than those with a score that is 700 or higher.

59% of breaches currently take place with third-party vendors, managing supply chains and the risks that cybercrime can bring with speed and conviction is the key to not only success, but survival for global supply chain networks.