Third-party risk comes in many forms – sometimes its cyber risk, sometimes it is operational. Just think about the risk that abounds as we recover from interruptions in traditional supply chains. Images of container ships idled offshore, unable to dock and unload their cargo to an economy eager to consume it, are a reminder of that risk. Third-party risk from your suppliers and channel partners intensifies the risk to first parties (your employees and users) and second parties (your customers).
Now think about your digital supply chain and the website that has become the heartbeat of your business. You can control your first-party risk through governance and the defenses you put in place against attacks. You manage second-party risk by encrypting the sensitive data your customers entrust to you. But how are you mitigating third-party risk in your digital supply chain? Have you even thought about it yet?
In the traditional supply chain, you’re only as secure as the contractors, service providers, resellers and other partners you work with. In the digital supply chain, the same holds true. You’ve likely had many a conversation on third-party risk over the past year – but if you are like your peers, you may have overlooked an area that many of the world’s largest companies have yet to address. The client-side supply chain requires the management of third-party risk from JavaScript servers and information systems you may have never heard of before. If that isn’t risky, what is?
Third-party risk in your digital supply chain – Worse than idled container ships
Whether you operate an online storefront; are part of the hospitality and global ticketing market that is poised for massive growth post pandemic; or you operate a financial institution or a healthcare practice that has seen a major shift to online over the past two years, your website is an integral part of how you do business. Just as you’re vulnerable to disruption in the traditional supply chains that move merchandise, you’re also vulnerable to attacks on the digital supply chain that moves sensitive data. Those attacks happen outside of what traditional web security protects and they can go on for months without detection.
The code your website uses to capture and process data from your customers depends on JavaScript. Features like web forms and shopping carts call JavaScript from sources all over the internet, but how much do you really know about those sources?
Formjacking and digital skimming are two kinds of attacks introduced by third-party JavaScript on your website. When your customers enter their personal information and credit card numbers, you capture the data, but so does the malicious actor who sneaked the exploit onto your site through your partners.
Naturally, you focus on data governance and chain of custody when you share data with third-party vendors in your traditional supply chain. What about the third-party risk in your digital supply chain? Shouldn’t you focus on the risk from JavaScript running on your site that can send customer information to bad actors?
Those idled container ships may cost you in orders, but web app client-side attacks on your site will cost you in damage to credibility, reputation, customer goodwill and in potentially massive fines for things like GDPR policy violations.
Mitigating the third-party risk lurking on your website is easier than you think
Source Defense provides web app client-side protection through JavaScript sandboxing. It offers a simple, easy-to-implement way to prevent client-side attacks that originate in the digital supply chain your site depends on. With our tags in the headers of your web pages, Source Defense protects against attacks on the first- and third-party JavaScript running on your customer-facing sites.
Recent Gartner research sees client-side attacks growing into a mainstream problem in the near future, with web app client-side protection becoming a mainstream defense in quick succession.
Most infosec measures you implement suck up your time and budget. Or they protect you from one problem only to cause another, like adding management overhead to your already-overtaxed web team. Implementing Source Defense is a little effort for an easy win in an overlooked area that mitigates the third-party risk to your digital supply chain. Some of the world’s largest websites are running Source Defense, which protects hundreds of millions of page views monthly by stopping attacks and preventing billions of compliance policy violations. Source Defense goes beyond detection to prevention, without imposing additional monitoring tasks on you.
Next steps – Webinar and risk report on web app client-side protection
Don’t overlook your need to protect your primary interface for consumer and user interaction. Learn more about protecting your website from third-party risk in the digital supply chain at our December 2 webinar, “The Client-Side Web Security Gap: Putting Your Business at Major Risk.” We’ll cover the threat from Magecart attacks on some of the world’s largest brands, Gartner’s analysis of the web app client-side protection market, and Source Defense’s approach to JavaScript sandboxing.
And look for Source Defense in SecurityScorecard’s Integrate360° Marketplace. SecurityScorecard identifies vulnerabilities on your website from an outside-in perspective, enabling you to see what a hacker sees. As a partner, Source Defense offers a Supply Chain Risk Report with insights into the risk introduced by the JavaScript integrations and third-party tools that power your website. If you’re a user of SecurityScorecard, you can install SourceDefense from the marketplace and see right now how your website scores for third-party risk.
PCI DSS 4.0 makes client-side security a priority.
Source Defense delivers a solution for 6.4.3 and 11.6.1 without adding a burden to your security teams.
