The past two years have brought about significant disruptions to global supply chains. Recent headlines have focused on labor shortages and their impact on everything from product production to shipping delays. However, another, more significant supply chain issue should be top of mind for every organization: supply chain attacks.

Earlier this week, the FTC issued a warning to companies regarding the Log4j vulnerability. Given the rampant exploitation of the recently discovered vulnerabilities in this ubiquitous open source logging package, it’s encouraging to see the agency take this rare step, beginning to form a firm stance on software supply chain security. Although this increased scrutiny from the FTC may at first seem daunting, violations can be remediated with the right practices.

Subscriptions-based services are a reality we all are getting used to; most people no longer buy physical media for example, opting to use streaming services for movies and music. This has numerous advantages like letting us explore new artists and genres without additional costs and commitment. Yet, while best known for its implementation in the digital world, subscription payment models are slowly but surely being adopted by more and more industries.

Effective software supply chain risk management requires security measures throughout the entire supply chain. Risk management is a well-understood part of business. Personified, risk management would be a dusty, gray man with a gray beard who asks questions that make you uncomfortable. Risk management is about understanding threats to your business and figuring out how you will deal with them.

In a pattern of continued growth across the third quarter of 2021, ransomware remains the dominant threat type, more than doubling since 2021 Q1, fuelled by an exponential increase in the initial access broker marketplace. Incidents of unauthorized access and the risk of insider threats also increased, but to a far lesser extent, accounting for roughly 20% of incidents in the same period.

A supply chain is the ecosystem of processes, systems, and entities that work together to transform an idea into a final product and customer-ready offering. That lifecycle consists of multiple moving parts. As global supply chain complexity increases, organizations in every industry require robust and reliable supply chain management (SCM) tools, processes, and people. Coordination of the supply chain is critical for efficiency and optimization.