BlackBerry Limited has released the results of a global survey of 1,000 senior IT decision makers and cyber security leaders conducted in April 2024 by Coleman Parkes on the security of the global software supply chain. The BlackBerry study sought to identify the procedures companies currently use to manage and lower the risk of security breaches from their software supply chain, drawing comparisons to previous research conducted in October 2022.
Recovery after an attack and impact on the business
After an attack, half of companies (51 percent) were able to recover from a breach within a week, a slight drop (53 percent) from two years ago – while nearly 40 percent took a month, a slight increase (37 percent) from before. Slightly less than three quarters of attacks (74 percent) came through members of the software supply chain that companies were either not aware of or not monitoring before the breach. This was despite insisting on data encryption (52 percent), security awareness training for staff (48 percent), and multi-factor authentication (44 percent).
Business impacts include financial loss (64 percent), data loss (59 percent), reputational damage (58 percent), and operational impact (55 percent).
Confidence buoyed by monitoring
More than two thirds of respondents (68 percent) were ‘very confident’ that suppliers can identify and prevent a vulnerability. A slightly smaller percentage (63 percent) were ‘very confident’ that supply chain partners have adequate cyber security regulatory and compliance practices. That confidence stems from regular monitoring.
When asked how often they inventory their supply chain partners for cyber security compliance, 41 percent asked for proof every quarter. These compliance requests include showing a software bill of materials (SBOM) or a Vulnerability Exploitability eXchange (VEX) artifact. The biggest barriers to regular software inventories are lack of technical understanding (51 percent), lack of visibility (46 percent), and lack of effective tools (41 percent).
Telling the consumer
With over 75 percent of software supply chains attacked in the last 12 months, what about the consumer/end user? 78 percent of companies are tracking the impact, but only 65 percent are informing their customers. When asked why not, the top two responses were concerned about the negative impact on corporate reputation (51 percent) and lack of staff resources (45 percent).
