Improving Supply Chain Security

Supply chain attacks are, unfortunately, becoming increasingly common as criminals look for new ways to make money off of the back of other people’s hard work. As you can imagine, if your company was to be hit by such an attack, it could prove to be devastating for your company and its reputation, and even for the customers; whose personal details could be compromised too.

With that in mind, there is no doubt that doing everything you can to improve supply chain security should be a priority right now, that is if you have not already taken steps to do so. 

If that is the case, below you will find some of the best ways to secure your supply chain and keep your company and your customers as safe as possible.

Get to know your suppliers

Perhaps, the best thing you can do to ensure that your supply chain is as secure as possible is to ensure that you know who your suppliers are. Before you use a supplier you should fully vet them to ensure that they have no weak links and that they have a trusted reputation. When you do this you should be sure to take into account up and downstream suppliers because it only takes one weak link to break the chain.

Conduct a risk assessment

Once you know who all of your supply chain links are and you are quite confident in their security, it is still, nevertheless, important that you should take the time to conduct a risk assessment that looks at factors such as their cybersecurity status, their own suppliers and any third-party applications that they use so you can be as sure as possible that a security breach is unlikely to happen as a result of their actions.

Think about third-party testing

At this point, you may want to think about paying for third-party testing. Having neutral professionals once in and check the system over to see if there is anything that could pose a risk is sensible because as well as being a fresh pair of eyes, they will have mo skin in the game so they can be completely impartial in their analysis.

Consider using blockchain

If you are not already using private blockchain technology to improve the security of your supply chain, then you probably should be. Blockchain is unique in that it is virtually tamper-proof and will log transactions exactly when they happened, exactly as they happened, ensuring there is always an accurate auditable trail. As well as keeping your supply chain data safe, it can be used to prevent fraud and the counterfeiting of your goods too, It’s probably as secure as you can get in terms of supply chain safety right now.

Offer ongoing training to staff

Of course, human error is a big cause of insecurity in the supply chain, so if you want to avoid suck breaches, it is a really good idea to give your staff the best possible supply chain security training, and ensure that that training is modified and updated regularly aschanges.

Stay safe, secure your supply chain.