Cybercriminals look for shortcuts to attack businesses more easily and maximize profit. Increasingly, smart cybercrooks are finding that targeting a common, critical piece of IT infrastructure—whether software, hardware or remote cloud service—they accomplish more with less effort.
Attackers are perfecting their tactics against software and hardware suppliers by the day, manufacturing their own zero-day exploits defenders will be unprepared for. Organizations need to put in the hard work to take a layered approach to minimize the risk that attacks against their IT suppliers will open them up to potentially devastating breaches.
Why securing your IT supply chain is crucial: Historically, IT environments have long consisted of several platforms, software and systems from various vendors. But in the cloud and IoT era, the external IT pieces provided by third-party suppliers have grown more interconnected and vulnerable to attack than ever before. Almost all software (whether internally developed an off-the-shelf product or cloud service) tends to be made of a patchwork of readymade components and APIs, both closed and open source.
To learn more, check out our Executive Summary.