Supply chains remain vulnerable to cyber crime and cyber terrorism

Supply chain managers must be vigilant when it comes to resisting cyber crime and cyber terrorism, an industry leader told SCMR today.

Dennis Omanoff, Senior Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer at McAfee, says it takes a “preemptive” strategy to ensure against future violations.

Concerns continue to rise about the “injection of viruses” into high-tech hardware products during their journey from manufacturing sources to customer delivery, especially to government agencies,” he added.

“More than natural disasters, financial instability or political upheavals, what keeps me up at night is the fear that bad guys are injecting bad stuff into products that can disrupt, bring down or steal confidential information from networks.”

McAfee, who recently addressed government officials at the company’s Focus 11 Conference, said taking the prevention initiative makes more sense than simply carrying insurance policies to cover an event.

“These days, one can find an underwriter for practically any disaster,” he said. “But with cyber crime, you are not only concerned with protecting your assets. You want to protect the brand, too.”

Particular concerns revolve around high-tech products that are plugged into or integrated with cyber networks. Omanoff made his remarks during a special “Global Government Strategies to Achieve Cyber Resilience” session composed of government IT leaders from around the world during Focus11, which this week attracted about 3,000 customers, partners, prospects and employees.

Omanoff cited statistics showing that McAfee reviews about 100,000 potential malware samples per day, identifies over 55,000 new, unique pieces of malware per day and identifies about 2,000,000 new malicious web sites per month.

Omanoff advised that supply chain professionals charged with manufacturing and delivery processes should “look beyond traditional threats such as tsunamis, demand volatility or financial degradation” and take extra precautions to ensure that technology products in particular are safeguarded from viral attacks.

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MR