Supply chain analysis

Reducing the risk of supply chain attacks and incidents

Most organizations today face major challenges when it comes to ensuring information security in their supply chains. It becomes difficult to ensure security in modern supply chains that often span multiple countries and involve a spectrum of different suppliers and subcontractors. Fully controlling and monitoring all aspects of the chain is difficult, yet the chain is critical to the business.

One of the most common challenges we see is the lack of transparency and visibility in the supply chain. Many organizations do not have sufficient knowledge of the suppliers in their chain, making it difficult to assess and manage digital security risk. In addition, suppliers may in turn have subcontractors whose security practices and processes are even less known to the organization, increasing the problem and risk of vulnerabilities and cyber-attacks.

Another challenge is managing and complying with rules and laws governing information security and data protection. With the introduction of stricter laws such as the GDPR and the NIS2 Directive, organizations are required to ensure that their supply chain complies with these rules. However, as we wrote earlier, this is difficult to achieve because you don’t always know what happens to the information flowing through the chain. It is simply a complex task.

As the organization grows, responsibilities in other areas also increase, so after a long time there may be a lack of both internal resources and expertise to conduct comprehensive audits of suppliers. In addition, there is often a lack of a pillar to support security checks when bringing in new suppliers.

With all the challenges posed by the supply chain, it is important to address supply chain security issues in a structured and proactive way to minimize risks and ensure a strong security culture throughout the supply chain. The solution is not to minimize the chain but to ensure safety in it. This is where our supply chain analysis comes in. By analyzing and assessing the supply chain from an information security perspective, we can identify and manage potential risks and vulnerabilities, meet regulatory requirements and ensure robust information security practices across the supply chain.

1. Start-up meeting
   We discuss scope, objectives, methodology, timeline and expectations.
2. Documentation
   We review your organization’s existing documentation of supply chain security policies, processes and risk assessments and the suppliers involved. As an option, we can also provide a GDPR assessment and screening of the supplier. We also have the possibility to conduct an OSINT of the supplier.
3. Workshop
   Key people within your company are interviewed to gather information that is not documented and to gain further understanding from existing documentation.
4. Risk analysis
   Based on what you have chosen, a two-part risk analysis is carried out. The first part assesses the level of supply chain maturity of your organization according to the controls in ISO27001:2022. The second part assesses the level of information security risk based on OSINT or GDPR.
5. Report
   We compile the work and produce a report and recommendations on the main risks.