Supply Chain Attacks
- What it is: A sophisticated cyberattack strategy that targets an organization indirectly by compromising its external vendors, suppliers, or other third-party service providers who have access to the target’s systems, data, or physical locations. By exploiting vulnerabilities in these interconnected entities, attackers can gain a foothold within the primary target’s environment, often leveraging established trust relationships.
- How it works: Attackers often identify less secure entities within an organization’s supply chain as initial targets. Once a vendor or provider is compromised, attackers can use their access to pivot to the primary target’s network. This can be achieved through various methods, including injecting malicious code into software updates distributed by the vendor, compromising cloud service providers used by the target, exploiting API integrations between systems, or even through physical access granted to third-party personnel. The complexity of modern supply chains and the varying security postures of different entities make detection and mitigation challenging.
- Example with key data: The 2020 SolarWinds supply chain attack serves as a prominent example. Attackers, believed to be a nation-state actor, compromised the build and release process of SolarWinds’ Orion network monitoring software. This allowed them to inject malicious code into legitimate software updates, which were then downloaded and installed by thousands of SolarWinds customers, including numerous U.S. government agencies and Fortune 500 companies. This resulted in widespread and long-term access to sensitive networks. Key data includes the fact that the malicious code remained undetected for months, highlighting the stealth and persistence achievable through supply chain attacks. The compromise of a widely used software product allowed the attackers to reach a vast number of high-value targets through a single point of entry.