SAIC and the University of Maryland Envision a Cyber Supply Chain Risk Assurance Reference Model

While that enables the speed of business today, it also opens up that global cyber supply chain to the same vulnerabilities that any other networked information system is subject to.

Which means that, in a worst case scenario, it is possible that the global economy could be brought to a halt by a well-orchestrated cyber attack. And that's why the matter has been elevated in the United States to the level of a presidential imperative.

"It is a national security imperative in a global economy that we have confidence in the supply chains of integrated systems and the integrity of the people, processes and technology that comprise them," said Hart Rossman, chief technology officer for Cybersecurity Solutions at SAIC and a senior research fellow of the Supply Chain Management Center (SCMC) at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland College Park.

And it's also why SAIC and the SCMC have undertaken a collaborative research initiative that culminated in the recent release of "Building a Cyber Supply Chain Assurance Reference Model," a white paper that addresses the cyber threat to the supply chain and outlines an innovative model that, for the first time, marries end-to-end supply chain management to cybersecurity. To read the white paper, see Building A Cyber Supply Chain Assurance Reference Model.

The study was funded by SAIC through its Office of Technology. The research team consisted of Thomas Corsi, Ph.D., and Sandor Boyson, Ph.D., co-directors of the SCMC at the University of Maryland; Sonik Sikka and Rodrigo Britto, enterprising graduate students working with the professors; and SAIC's Hart Rossman.