A supply chain attack is a cyberattack that targets an organization's outside vendors to access networks and infrastructure. More specifically, a supply chain attack is when a criminal compromises a trusted vendor to commit cyberattacks across a supply chain. They can infect shared infrastructure with malware, or send convincing phishing attacks from the trusted vendor.
Supply chain attacks happen when attackers target an organization by first compromising its trusted partners. This trust creates a risk where supply chain attacks can succeed because they are hard to detect.
Types of Supply Chain Attacks
Software Supply Chain Attacks: Software supply chain attacks involve attackers targeting software developers and suppliers. If they find a weak point, they can inject malware into a trusted app or program used across an entire supply chain of vendors.
Social Engineering Supply Chain Attacks: Social engineering supply chain attacks involve attackers compromising a vendor account and using it to send convincing phishing attacks.
How to Detect Supply Chain Attacks
Supply chain attacks are particularly difficult to detect because they leverage trusted relationships and legitimate infrastructure. Organizations should monitor vendor communications for unusual patterns, implement zero-trust security principles, and verify all requests involving financial transactions or sensitive data through out-of-band channels.
How to Prevent Supply Chain Attacks
Pangratis offers solutions to prevent supply chain attacks, including VendorBase, which improves attack prevention and risk awareness by sharing vendor compromise intelligence across a global, federated knowledge base. If a vendor account has been compromised, the risk score for that vendor is increased and emails from them will be flagged as suspicious for all customers.
Additional prevention measures include conducting thorough due diligence on vendors, implementing strict access controls, and training employees to recognize and report suspicious vendor communications.