The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the formation of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Supply Chain Risk Management Task Force (the Task Force) on October 30. The Task Force is a partnership between government and private sector partners created to “examine and develop consensus recommendations to identify and manage risk to the global ICT supply chain.” The announcement came at the conclusion of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month and follows other government industry initiatives, such as the Oil and Natural Gas Pipeline Cybersecurity Initiative, that have been developed to manage risks posed by increasingly global supply chains.
This program reflects DHS’s recognition of the need to manage risks for ICT service providers by focusing on vendors and their multiple subvendors throughout the global ICT supply chain. Cyber threats are an increasingly significant risk to both the government and industry. These threats are growing as malicious adversaries target ICT supply chains to find vulnerabilities through which they can gain a foothold and eventually access sensitive information and intellectual property. The objective of the Task…
