3-4 MIN AUDIO SCRIPT
Aim – To drive interest and encourage viewers to want to learn more
How – The problem global supply chains are facing
Style – Conversational, challenging and supportive
Introduction
You are listening to Microsoft Security Audio Bytes. In this clip, you will hear Jess talking about the
global supply chain crisis and how cybercrime has become an increasing concern for the industry,
enjoy.
There are many factors that can contribute to a global supply chain crisis. In recent times we have
seen how a global pandemic or political unrest can generate this huge wave of impact across the
entire industry. The effects of this are massive, it can lead to industry cutbacks and layoffs, reduced
demands for certain goods and an increased demand for others.
When these kinds of challenges present themselves, we quite often also see opportunities for
innovation to emerge. In the global supply chain, we have seen rapid digital transformation, for
example 86% of manufacturers now use cloud storage solutions – and its these types of technologies
that are completely transforming the way manufacturers operate and compete.
Technological advancement has paved the way for more smart, secure, and agile factories and along with skilled workforces and intelligent supply-chain planning and processes.
Unfortunately, there is also a bit of a downside to this rapid innovation, which is cybercrime…and it
is critical that we have these quite often difficult conversations with businesses, because they can
severely hinder and sometime destroy an entire business - effecting the lives of so many people.
To give you a bit of context, the manufacturing sector is now the second most targeted industry
globally for cyberattacks. Just as recently as 2019 is was 8th and today its right up there at the top
with the only industry above it being finance. And its real serious business, the average cost of
rectification can amount to over 1.5 million dollars, as you can imagine resulting in catastrophic
production loss and downtime which can be a compounding cost.
Attackers typically focus on systems lacking inherent security controls, and unfortunately, 62% of
staff from the industry state they don’t spend enough time on the necessary strategic work, such as
setting the security strategy or preparing for sophisticated attacks
There are 3 areas integrally linked to improve security: People, Process & Technology.
Starting with People- by empowering employees to be vigilant against cyber threats and using a
zero trust framework, manufacturers can take measures to stay productive, keep ahead of the
competition, maintain employee satisfaction, and retain customer trust
With Process, building resilience into your supply chain begins with complete transparency,
from development to distribution - monitoring the manufacturing process at all levels. To
enable detection, protection, and recovery from cyberattacks, manufacturing standards must
be defined and enforced
And finally on Technology, Unpatched and unsecured tech in the supply chain can
pose great security risks. Building resilience into your supply chain requires configuring your
IT/OT infrastructure to protect data, events, processes, and devices against cyberattacks or
espionage.
I can’t stress enough how critical it is, that we make a strong effort to make business aware of the
situation. It is a very real threat, and, wherever possible we offer our full support and guidance.
At Microsoft we want to empower manufacturing companies to create more resilient supply chains
and we are committed to delivering an integrated, end-to-end approach to security.
Outro
Thank you for listening to this Microsoft SCI audio byte, to learn more about how Microsoft can
provide solutions to support visit aka.ms/SecurityOutcomes