Reuters Events | Supply Chain & Logistics Business Intelligence

New white paper finds cyber is seen as the biggest digital vulnerability and a major threat to overall supply chain operations, but cyber security investment remains lacklustre

A new white paper from Reuters Events, Supply Chain and Cargowise has found that securing digital operations is the biggest challenge for IT operations, with a quarter of leaders surveyed in a global survey saying it is a major barrier when it comes to building capabilities.

When asked whether their current technology stack posed a cyber security risk, 94% of respondents said that this was a concern, with 61% moderately concerned and 24% very or extremely concerned.

Additionally, when asked what they see as the biggest risks to global supply chains, cyber attacks are the second biggest threat (19%) after geopolitical tensions (33%).  

Not a high enough priority?

However, the research, which canvassed more than 450 supply chain executives, found that the response to this threat is underwhelming compared to the scale of the threat, especially as most supply chain digital set-ups have multiple points of vulnerability.

The survey looked at the digital investments firms were making and found that in the year prior to the survey just 31% reported putting money into cybersecurity tools, the same level as inventory analysis data management, and behind transport management systems (42%), digital documentation (41%) and warehouse automation (35%).

Multiple points of attack

This seems to be a mismatch in priorities and risks that needs to be addressed across supply chains, especially as most supply chains operate a broad mix of systems, introducing multiple points of vulnerability that could be breached by cyber attacks.

The white paper found that only 16% of those surveyed had a unified tech stack, despite 48% saying it was their preferred set up. Instead, 29% reported that they largely used “disparate local solutions tailored to specific countries” and 55% said that their approach is defined by a “piecemeal mix of global and local solutions”.

A continued risk supply chains must be prepared for

This comes despite a high-risk profile for supply chains, which are a target for malicious actors, both state and individual.

Just this year, the CrowdStrike IT outage potentially impacted an estimated 49 million organisations according to analysis by Interos and attacks on the supply chain sector rose 26% in 2023 alone.

The results reinforce an earlier survey of European supply chain professionals from Reuters Events Supply Chain and Maersk that found that cyber security was one of the top five potential disruption they face, being cited by 34% of respondents.

The full white paper can be downloaded for free here.