NIST Recommendations for Defending Against Software Supply Chain Attacks

Are the software vendors you’re using prioritizing security? Are they doing everything possible to keep their networks and products secure? Unfortunately, too many software vendors today just aren’t providing adequate levels of security in their networks or products–and the results are proving disastrous for organizations using the software and their customers. 

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Just how disastrous can a software supply chain attack be? The software can provide the pathway for invaders to circumvent cyber defenses for network access, maintain stealthy persistence, steal data, and spy on unknowing victims. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released the “Defending Against Software Supply Chain Attacks” guidelines on April 26, 2021, which showed that supply chain attacks could have “widespread consequences for government, critical infrastructure, and private sector software customers.”

Software supply chain attacks are undoubtedly a grave security concern for all businesses today–just ask the many organizations impacted by the recent SolarWinds debacle, which we will discuss later. In this article, you will learn about these attacks, the primary software supply chain risks organizations face, and NIST’s recommendations for defending against these potentially devastating events.