Every Industry Has a Hub like CDK Global: Uncovering the Hidden Gems of Industry-Specific Software Solutions
The Hidden Dangers of Interconnected Supply Chains: A Lesson from CDK Global
In today’s complex digital landscape, every industry has a weak link – a small, often overlooked company that can bring an entire sector to a grinding halt if compromised. For the automotive industry, that weak link is CDK Global, a software provider that powers over 15,000 car dealerships across the United States. In June 2024, the BlackSuit ransomware group breached CDK Global’s network, forcing its software offline and causing millions of dollars in lost revenue.
The Risks of Interconnected Supply Chains
The CDK Global incident highlights the risks associated with interconnected supply chains. Every organization relies on a web of vendors, each with its own set of dependencies and vulnerabilities. According to Verizon’s 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report, 30% of breaches stem from third-party vendors, double the number from the previous year. This trend is likely to continue as organizations increasingly rely on specialized vendors that, in turn, depend on niche fourth and fifth-party providers.
The Challenge of Managing Third-Party Vendor Risk
The challenge of managing third-party vendor risk is well-known to chief information security officers (CISOs). With too many vendors to keep track of, too much paperwork, and too many bad outcomes, it’s a daunting task. However, the problem goes far beyond the local footprint. The sprawling, interdependent web of connections that comprises an organization’s supply chain remains largely invisible to traditional risk management approaches.
Most companies have no contracts with these downstream vendors, no visibility into their security practices, and no leverage to demand improvements. Yet, a vulnerability in any one of these vendors can shut down the organization. When a cloud provider’s data center relies on a compromised HVAC system, or a payment processor depends on a vulnerable file transfer tool, those hidden relationships become the company’s problem.
Traditional Risk Management Falls Short
Traditional risk management relies on point-in-time assessments that assume static risk. However, threat actor activity changes by the minute, while organizations work with questionnaires that are weeks, months, or even years old. This approach misses most of the third- and fourth-party risk, leaving organizations exposed to cascading risks buried deep in their extended supply chains.
Leveraging AI to Address Supply Chain Risks
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) can help address these challenges. By leveraging AI, organizations can monitor, manage, and protect their supply chains in ways that were previously unthinkable. Here are some practical steps risk and security leaders can take:
- Conduct continuous assessments: AI can solve the challenges of speed and scale, enabling real-time monitoring of third, fourth, and nth-party vendors.
- Map the supply chain: Understand which vendor assets the business relies on and how far those dependencies cascade through the supply chain.
- Prioritize intelligently: Focus resources on vendors with unresolved high-severity vulnerabilities affecting critical assets.
- Use frameworks, but make them dynamic: Lean into security frameworks, but modernize them with real-time insights to connect the operational mandate of protection with the governance charter of compliance.
Organizations that fail to evolve their risk management practices to match the complexity of modern supply chains will remain vulnerable to the hidden dependencies that could halt their business overnight.
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