Securing the Chain: A Step-by-Step Guide for CISOs

A cyber breach anywhere can spark board-level panic.

This guide helps you keep control - of the narrative, the risk, and your response.

Cyber incidents aren’t rare. If anything, they are becoming an increasingly frequent and sophisticated threat. And when one hits the headlines, your board wants answers. Yesterday.  
These incidents can have profound implications for companies; threatened business continuity can cost in time, resource and fines. Not to mention the untold impact if lost trust and reputational damage. 

Your team is already running lean, yet they’re expected to mobilise, assess, report and reassure - often with fragmented data and limited time. 

You can control your own environment. You know what standards your team meets, what controls are in place, and where the gaps are. But as soon as a third party enters the equation, trust becomes a proxy for assurance. You need to believe that your suppliers care about cybersecurity as deeply as you do - and yet, validating that trust at speed, and at scale, is one of the biggest operational challenges CISOs face today. 

This paper offers a focused response to that reality. It outlines three practical, high-impact steps CISOs can take to strengthen supply chain security without derailing their strategic agenda: 

• Get Visibility: Maintain accurate, up-to-date, holistic oversight of your third-party ecosystem - not just once a year. 

• Focus on Data: Trust, but verify - and standardise the way you do it across your supply base. 

• Cut Through the Noise: Streamline your data and reporting so you can act fast when incidents strike. 

Each step is designed to reduce noise, increase confidence, and support swift decision-making when scrutiny is at its highest.