CISOs spend countless hours thinking about defenses: fortifying networks, hardening endpoints, securing applications and safeguarding the cloud from an unrelenting wave of attacks. As an industry, we’ve collectively invested billions to keep pace with everything from traditional malware to the sophisticated onslaughts supercharged by generative AI (GenAI).
But there’s a blind spot in even the best-prepared strategies — one that’s increasingly dangerous because it’s not fully within our control — our third-party ecosystems and their sprawling webs of suppliers, distributors, resellers, service providers and even customers. Collectively, they form the circulatory system of global commerce. And every node represents a potential point of entry for threat actors who understand a fundamental, uncomfortable truth: No matter how advanced our internal defenses, we are only as strong as the weakest link in our supply chain.
If you’re thinking, “We’ve got this covered,” I urge you to think again. Yes, many organizations include third-party risk in their audit checklists. Yes, they use compliance reporting as a measure of vendor hygiene. But let’s be clear: That’s not security, but rather periodic paperwork.
Nearly a decade ago, we were warned about this kind of complacency in another context — the false sense of safety in virtualized environments. Back then, unless every component of the architecture was equally advanced, the entire system was inherently vulnerable. The same principle applies here: Static, outdated approaches to third-party risk are both inadequate and dangerous. Unless we treat supply chain security as an urgent discipline, the whole enterprise is at risk.
What’s Needed: Real-Time Vigilance and Data
Cybersecurity in the supply chain cannot be treated as a periodic exercise. Monitoring, managing and maintaining security must be an ongoing, always-on discipline. Static audits and annual compliance reviews might satisfy regulators, but they do little to stop a zero-day exploit or a fast-moving supply chain breach. If every element of the system isn’t next-generation, the result is insecurity — and ultimately, inoperability. The critical nature of this continuous approach is underscored by findings in the 2025 Unit 42 Incident Response Report, which revealed that, in 75% of incidents, critical evidence of the initial intrusion was present in the logs. Yet, due to complex, disjointed systems, that information wasn’t readily accessible or effectively operationalized, allowing attackers to exploit the gaps undetected. This highlights a crucial disconnect: The clues are often there, but traditional, periodic approaches fail to bring them to light in time.
We’ve seen this play out before and will see it for many years to come. Yet despite the hard lessons of these attacks, many organizations continue to treat third-party risk as a procurement checklist item — an annual vendor questionnaire rather than a living, breathing threat surface.
This is a dangerous misconception. Supply chain risks don’t wait for audit season. They evolve in real time — and so must our defenses.
What We Can (and Should) Do About Supply Chain Risks
CISOs must champion a shift from periodic vendor checks to continuous, live risk monitoring across every third-party relationship. Anything less risks operational disruption and creates some uncomfortable conversations in the boardroom, as well as scrutiny from regulators asking hard questions about why known vulnerabilities went unaddressed.
The truth is, we’ve been relying too long on static audits and compliance checklists. These might have satisfied yesterday’s risks, but today’s threat landscape moves at machine speed. As such, we need hyperaccurate, real-time insights into supply chain vulnerabilities, updated as conditions change.
That’s a significant ask. It demands real investment in tools, talent and time. Fortunately, CISOs have a powerful equalizer at their disposal: AI and automation. GenAI, predictive models and advanced machine learning are tailor-made for this challenge. AI can scan an expansive universe of data — past incidents, public disclosures, certifications, behavioral signals — to build dynamic security profiles for every vendor in your ecosystem. It can track changes in posture, flag emerging risks and generate meaningful, quantifiable risk scores.
Automation amplifies this further. Given the persistent shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals, automation acts as a force multiplier — continuously evaluating third-party risks and accelerating response times when anomalies emerge. Sophisticated, contextually aware analytics ensure that attacks are identified and neutralized before they can move laterally across your environment.
This is about both efficiency and necessity. Attacks unfold in minutes, not months. Automated alert triaging can mean the difference between containment and catastrophe. When every second counts, you don’t want human operators parsing spreadsheets. You want AI-enhanced systems that detect, decide and deploy defenses in real time.
The Bottom Line: Act Before the Breach
CISOs can no longer afford to extend blind trust to their vendors. The future demands something sharper: unparalleled visibility, real-time evaluation, and staunch accountability across every vendor, every partner and every link in the supply chain.
Third-party risk must be part of a holistic, board-level cybersecurity strategy. It can’t sit in a silo owned by procurement or delegated to compliance teams. Boards must understand how supply chain security contributes to overall enterprise resilience — and ensure that it’s tightly integrated with broader risk planning, business continuity efforts and regulatory readiness. Build resilience now because, in this new threat environment, hesitation is the surest path to disruption.
Curious about your supply chain risk? Check out our Supply Chain Risk Assessment.
