The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) have released updated guidance for organisations to aid them in their assessment of the level of cyber security within their supply chains.

This advice was released shortly after the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) declaration last week which demonstrated a significant effort to help prevent cyber-attacks beginning or spreading between organisations and their suppliers.

The guidance produced by the NCSC is split into five stages aimed at initially explaining the threat of a supply chain attack.

Once better understood, the proceeding stages help organisations to assess the level of cyber security throughout. From there, the organisation will be able to conduct risk assessments from an informed point of view and highlight particularly vulnerable areas that may need to be addressed.

The NCSC have aimed the material at “procurement specialists, risk managers and cyber security professionals” whilst highlighting that it is not just for those without existing supply chain management in place but can be used to improve any approaches already established.

With cyber defence continuously improving, threat actors are increasingly attacking more vulnerable vendors to gain access to a more valuable target.

These types of attacks can also cause inadvertent impact on associated organisations as seen recently with the software supplier ‘Advanced’ being attacked, and the NHS suffering significant impact as a result.

Organisations are encouraged to review and appropriately disseminate the wealth of information provided from national organisations such as the NCSC and CISA with regards to cyber defence.

By including a supplier’s cyber security and resilience status as a factor in procurement plans, whilst encouraging organisations who you have a business relationship with to invest in their security, organisations will be in a much stronger defensive position.

Reporting

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