You secured your front door.
Your suppliers left the back one open.
Modern businesses depend on dozens of third-party vendors, apps, and integrations. Each one is a potential entry point into your environment. Supply chain attacks are now one of the most common ways attackers bypass strong perimeter security — by going through a trusted partner instead.
What Is Supply Chain Security?
The attack didn't come from outside. It came through a partner you trusted.
Your own perimeter might be well hardened. Firewalls, MFA, patching — all in order. But your accountant uses a cloud bookkeeping platform. Your marketing team uses an agency's project tool. Your IT team uses a remote management vendor. Each of those relationships creates a digital connection to your environment — and each one could be exploited.
Supply chain attacks happen when an adversary can't get in through the front door, so they compromise a vendor, supplier, or software provider that you already trust. Once they're inside that vendor's systems, they use that trusted relationship as a bridge into yours.
The Australian Cyber Security Centre specifically calls out supply chain risk as a top threat for Australian businesses. Managing it requires visibility — knowing exactly what third parties have access to your systems, data, and identity infrastructure.
Real-world supply chain attack vectors
Compromised MSP access
An attacker compromises a managed service provider's remote access tools and uses that to pivot into every client they manage.
Malicious software updates
A trusted software vendor's update mechanism is hijacked to deliver malware to every customer who applies the update — appearing fully legitimate.
OAuth over-permission
A third-party integration requests broad Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace permissions. If that vendor is breached, attackers inherit those permissions.
Vendor credential theft
A supplier's staff member's credentials are stolen. Attackers use those credentials to access your systems through legitimate supplier access channels.
Our Approach
A structured vendor risk assessment — not just a checklist
We assess your actual exposure across every third-party relationship, not just the ones you think matter.
Vendor Inventory
We build a complete list of every third-party vendor, SaaS tool, integration, and external contractor with access to your systems, data, or network — including ones that were set up years ago and forgotten.
Access Rights Mapping
For each vendor, we document exactly what access they have: which systems, which data, which user accounts, what permissions, and whether that access is still necessary.
Risk Classification
Each vendor is rated on a risk matrix covering data sensitivity, access breadth, their own security posture, regulatory implications, and business criticality.
Gap Analysis
We identify where you have no contract, no security questionnaire, no MFA requirement, or no access review process in place for vendors who have significant reach into your environment.
Remediation Roadmap
You receive a prioritised plan: which vendor relationships to tighten, which access to revoke, which contracts to update, and which vendors to replace or require security evidence from.
Ongoing Programme
For managed clients, we implement an ongoing vendor risk programme: annual reviews, security questionnaires for new vendors, and monitoring of high-risk integrations.
What You Get
A clear picture of your third-party risk exposure
Know exactly which vendors pose the greatest risk and what to do about it.
- Complete third-party vendor inventory
- Access rights map and permission audit
- Risk-rated vendor register
- Prioritised remediation plan
- Vendor security questionnaire template
- Executive briefing with findings and recommendations
- Alignment with ACSC Essential Eight and ISO 27001
Book a Vendor Risk Assessment
We'll be in touch within one business day to arrange your assessment.