The Extended Enterprise Ecosystem: A Growing Threat –

The benefits of a diverse, interconnected supply chain are compelling. Agility, speed, and cost reduction all weigh on the positive side of the equation. It prompts businesses to pursue close, collaborative relationships with vendors, often numbering in the hundreds or thousands.

On the negative side is the Pandora’s box of cyber risk, opened when enterprises expose their networks to third parties. In our modern interconnected working world, most businesses have an extended ecosystem of partners. It only takes one of those to have cybersecurity vulnerabilities to bring a business to its knees. The challenge facing today’s enterprise is working out which one!

It is complicated by several factors:

• The escalating global threat environment
• Increasing regulatory focus on cyber liability
• The high number and diversity of partners in the business ecosystem
• Exponential growth in data and alerts and the tension between risk management
• Business agility that pressurizes in-house teams to onboard new partners at speed.

They add up to a cyber risk management challenge which threatens to overwhelm all but the most highly resourced companies. As a result,…