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Cybersecurity is Crucial: Things You Must Know From the Latest Federal Hack

by Guest Author on December 22, 2020

Endpoint security is highly critical for an organization, as a single vulnerable endpoint can act as a doorway for cybercriminals to launch attacks that could infect the entire network.

While there are many lessons to be learned from the massive cybersecurity disaster that the U.S. Federal government experienced this week, one important takeaway for every organization is the often-overlooked danger of supply chain risk. No business is an island. If you’ve got suppliers, vendors or service providers for your business, you’ve got supply chain risk – and you need to take precautions to mitigate it right at the endpoint.

This week’s incident is a great cautionary tale to remember when considering the implications of supply chain risk to your company’s cybersecurity. Just like most organizations, the U.S. federal government utilizes a variety of vendors for specialty services. From operating coffee stands to supplying security solutions, they do business with thousands of vendors that directly interact with federal facilities and equipment. Each of those vendors represents a potential security threat.

Extending trust to vendors is part and parcel of doing business. After all, you wouldn’t have chosen to develop relationships with these companies if you didn’t trust them to take care of a specialty service that’s outside of your business’ wheelhouse. However, you’re also giving them sensitive information about your business or access to critical systems to provide these services, and that exposes those things to additional risk.

Supply chain risk has become an issue that threatens every organization in every sector

Through the BlackBaud hack earlier this year, hundreds of non-profit organizations experienced data exposure because of a hack at a trusted vendor. Unlike this incident, the cybercriminals involved stole data about those organizations from BlackBaud instead of gaining access to the affected organizations’ systems. That’s also an important risk to keep on your radar. As the Dark Web economy continues to grow in a market that’s hungry for data, ransomware and other data-stealing attacks are growing as well to keep feeding that demand.