Written by: Ram Narayanan, Country Manager at Check Point Software Technologies, Middle East

Supply chain attacks aren’t new. If the past couple of years have taught businesses anything, it’s that the impact of supply chain cyber attacks is now, universal, from the fallout of the SolarWinds software breach, to the exposed Apache Log4j vulnerability and Kaseya last year. Unfortunately when such supply chain attacks hit smaller businesses who are usually the suppliers to larger enterprises, their impact is especially prohibitive.

For SMBs already feeling the prolonged impact of the pandemic, the added pressure of dealing with sophisticated and frequent cyber attacks in real time, are a heavy burden, as they try to protect their business against financial, legal and reputational damage, as well as their own suppliers and larger clients’ security. It is now more important than ever for SMBs to implement strict security hygiene and effective cybersecurity processes to ensure their business is prepared for the event of cyber attacks happening.

SMBs as an indirect avenue of cyber attacks

The reality is threat actors have taken advantage not only of the now-entrenched remote working model to target organisations, but also the usual limits preventing SMBs from bulking up on their cyber security defenses, mainly lack of budget and expertise. SMBs often do not have a dedicated IT or security department, meaning with no in-house security expertise and reduced focus on security patching, these companies are easier to socially engineer and infiltrate. Adding to this, SMBs usually have employees doing multiple roles, and thus a wider access to valuable areas of the business and information is given to them, and so if breached, they pose a  threat to multiple areas within the business.

Threat actors often target SMBs as low hanging fruit for their vital role in supply chains. This is especially so as such attacks wreak havoc on not only one organization but entire businesses within the supply networks. By leveraging tactics such as phishing, cybercriminals gain access to an organization to launch a malware attack, steal data and credentials or instigate a ransomware.

The key factor to preventing cyberattacks is threat prevention. With minimal time and lack of cyber expertise or manpower, SMBs must adopt a prevention mindset to minimise potential cyber attacks and threats.

 

Why cybersecurity readiness is paramount for SMBs

Beyond the immediate financial impact and reputational blow as a trustworthy, reliable partner, SMBs can also face legal or regulatory repercussions, operational disruption, flow-on costs for system remediation and cyberattack response, customer churn, and the loss of competitive advantage that can make or break a smaller business. In fact, a tarnished reputation as an avenue of attack can be even more detrimental to an SMB organisation, as the loss of trust with a larger organisation could mean a loss of potential business and revenue down the line with them or other new, potential customers.

How SMBs can prevent supply chain attacks

By applying stronger cyber defences, SMBs are in a position to provide larger organisations with assurance that larger companies they supply to will not be compromised via the SMB partner or third-party vendor.

Whilst there are multiple means to prevent such supply chain attacks, the first step is to have good software capable of covering the entire company, protecting the company’s endpoints and devices, supported by regular backups so that, in the event of a cyberattack, they have the possibility of restoring all the data.

A viable option for SMBs is to also consider engaging an experienced Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP), who will have the skilled resources, updated security software and experienced expertise to monitor for and analyse threats on behalf of the SMB player. This is especially useful for SMBs who have neither the time nor resources to adequately enforce threat detection and response.

Partnering with a cybersecurity expert equipped with best-in-class security and scalable solution such as Check Point Software can put SMBs in good stead to protect against the most sophisticated attacks and generate trust among larger potential players.