Supply chains are just as vulnerable to threats and attacks as data and software. We’ve always been told to be wary of things like emails from unrecognised or unfamiliar addresses, to be careful about who we’re sharing our credentials with. However, hackers are now starting to attack hardware and software relating to supply chains at their very source.
What is a supply chain attack?
A supply chain attack is a cyber attack that damages an organisation by targeting less well-protected elements of its supply chain. It can occur in any industry whether that be the financial sector, government sector, or oil industry. Cybercriminals are known to interfere with the manufacturing process of a product in order to sabotage it using a collection of computer software called a rootkit or hardware-based spying tools.
Hackers attack supply chains by writing malicious code or implementing a malicious component into a company’s trusted hardware or software. By doing this and compromising a supplier, cybercriminals are then able to hijack the supplier’s distribution systems allowing them to turn anything from what that supplier sells to any software updates they make and even any…
