In recent years, supply chains have become goldmines for cybercriminals. They can feasibly manipulate them because these are the weakest link in an organization’s cybersecurity infrastructure. This has led to an increased risk of supply chain attacks.
Such an attack happens when a malicious actor exploits your vendor’s services or tools to infiltrate your system. There are several ways to avoid supply chain attacks. For example, you can opt for outsourcing cybersecurity, employ the least privilege policy in your business, and prioritize e-mail authentication.
If you want to secure your supply chains from these intruders, keep reading the article. It will shed light on how businesses can prevent supply chain attacks.
Top 6 Effective Ways to Avoid Supply Chain Attacks
Supply chain attacks have become more common than you might think. According to an estimate, almost 45% of companies are at risk of facing these threats by 2025. You can adopt different strategies to prevent such attacks from happening. These include identifying insider threats, conducting vendor checks, and educating your staff. Let’s discuss the six effective ways to avoid supply chain attacks:
Outsourcing Cybersecurity
The best way to prevent supply chain attacks is to outsource cybersecurity. This approach helps you benefit from the expertise of professionals. They will make your supply chain secure by employing various cybersecurity methods.
Some organizations opt for in-house protection when it comes to defending their supply chains against cyber criminals. This strategy is not effective against such a sophisticated threat because of the lack of skills and resources.
When you opt for a proper cybersecurity service, you get the right individuals, expertise, and resources to minimize the risk. That is why businesses contact cybersecurity companies Abu Dhabi to protect their supply chains against these attacks.
Follow the Least Privilege Principle
The implementation of the least privilege principle is instrumental in protecting your organization against such threats. This is considered one of the most effective ways to avoid supply chain attacks.
Ignoring the principle leads to a chaotic environment where everyone can access third-party software or services used in the workplace. This makes your supply chain more vulnerable to cybersecurity incidents, facilitating supply chain attacks.
You must employ a strong restriction policy. The employee should have limited access based on their duties. This will significantly enhance your security measures because threat actors will not be able to find any privileged account in your system.
Prefer Email Authentication
Do never ignore the importance of email authentication. This will assist you in verifying the authenticity of the recipient or sender to avoid any fraudulent activity. The authentication method has proven to be an excellent approach to mitigate the probability of supply chain attacks.
Most people are unaware of the fact that their email accounts serve as the most common sources of such cyber threats. When you do not prioritize authentication, your system becomes more susceptible to various types of supply chain attacks, including phishing and spear-phishing.
Employing authentication strategies, such as DomainKeys Identified Mail and Sender Policy Framework, is a must to safeguard your supply chains against different attacks. This will counter impersonation or spoofing attempts.
Conduct Vendor Checks Regularly
Conducting vendor checks on a regular basis is necessary. It is the best way businesses can prevent supply chain attacks. You can make more informed decisions and decrease vulnerabilities in your system by adopting this approach.
Sometimes, businesses opt for a service provider to gain third-party tools without checking their reliability. As a result, they end up with outdated and susceptible products, which increases the risk of supply chain attacks.
You can authenticate the reliability of your service provider by considering others’ reviews on their official platform and analyzing the complexity of the services they provide.
Identify Insider Threats
Identification of potential insider threats can save you from an unpleasant incident regarding your supply chains. By pointing out the internal threat actors, you can increase your cybersecurity against these attacks by manifolds.
Insider threats have become the biggest headache for companies. A criminal-minded individual within your business can cause supply chain attacks in two ways:
- They might launch the attack on their own
- They might provide external malicious actors with the particular access needed to execute the attack
Evaluating your employees regularly, implementing a robust security policy, and getting help from an expert are helpful approaches in this matter. You can opt for cybersecurity companies to identify potential insider threats.
Educate Your Staff
Last but not least, educating your staff about supply chain attacks can assist in avoiding supply chain attacks. Most of the time, cybercriminals trick one of your employees into gaining required access to your system.
Another way your staff members can be exploited is by sending them scam emails by impersonating a trustworthy individual. This leads to the activation of malicious codes and the exposure of login credentials.
Spreading awareness among your staff about the most common types of supply chain attacks and their sources is an effective approach to avoid such incidents.
Takeaways
Supply chain attacks occur when a threat actor exploits the weakest links in your supply chains. You can prevent these threats by limiting access to sensitive tools, implementing email authentication, and educating your staff. You can also outsource cybersecurity by contacting a reliable provider.