Why Is Supply Chain Security Important?
Supply chain security is critical because organizations increasingly rely on third-party vendors, suppliers and service providers to deliver products, services and support essential to business operations. These dependencies introduce risks that can compromise the confidentiality, integrity and availability of an organization’s sensitive data and systems.
Supply chain security is important for the following reasons:
- Third parties expand an organization’s attack surface, where third parties may have less mature cybersecurity controls, creating vulnerabilities that adversaries can exploit to infiltrate an organization’s network indirectly;
- Recent high-profile cybersecurity incidents (e.g., SolarWinds) demonstrated how compromising a single supplier can cascade to thousands of organizations, highlighting the systemic risks of unsecured supply chains;
- Compliance often flows down to third parties and many cybersecurity requirements such as NIST SP 800-171, CMMC, GDPR and HIPAA, require organizations to manage supply chain risks to protect sensitive and/or regulated data;
- Business continuity depends on a functioning supply chain, so supply chain disruptions due to cyberattacks can halt production, delay deliveries and cause financial losses, emphasizing the need to secure supplier relationships; and
- Organizations face reputational risk issues, where a breach affecting suppliers can damage customer trust and brand reputation, even if the organization itself is not directly compromised.
To mitigate these issues, organizations implement Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) programs. By securing the supply chain, organizations can strengthen their overall cybersecurity posture and protect business-critical operations from cascading cyber threats.