Back in February it was revealed that the Target breach that affected 110 million customers originated from a heating, air conditioning and ventilation (HVAC) subcontractor that was privy to certain network credentials. The attack was carried out using information from just 25 point of sale terminals, illustrating the damage that can be caused from a small amount of data. Yet in manufacturing, supply chain information security is still an afterthought; a tick in the box exercise for the annual audit.

 

Admittedly, securing the supply chain is fraught with complexity. While it's clear that responsibility for data protection resides with the creator/owner, safeguarding it when it is out of your hands can be problematic. Supplier relationships are often built on trust and retrofitting indemnity and liability clauses in contracts can be awkward at best. Many organisations rely on annual audits under standards such as ISO 27001 as a catch-all solution but this can miss potential weak spots when new processes are put in place or new systems brought online. There is currently no de facto supply chain standard.

 

Part of the reason why supply chain management has become so complex is down to the way data is now accessed, shared and stored. Cloud computing and enterprise mobility have made it easier to pass data to third parties but have made governance more difficult to enforce. To further complicate matters, many services now outsourced may not be classified as suppliers per se. For instance, legal teams or marketing agencies may hold sensitive data but may not come under the jurisdiction of an ISO 27001 audit. Often that supplier may in turn share data with their suppliers.

 

For now, organisations must steer their own supplier management policies. Start by listing the suppliers you do business with and classify them according to their relationship with you. Go further back from Tier 1 to Tier 2 and beyond to ensure you have an understanding of how data is used.

 

 

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