Cyber Security and Resilience in Supply Chains for SMEs

In recent years, numerous cases have shown that it is not enough for companies to focus only on their own cybersecurity. Increasingly, cases of cyberattacks are being reported that exploit the cross-regional, digital connections between companies in supply chains (SCs) to harm industries, regions, or nations. Vulnerabilities in SCs are so attractive as targets because SCs contribute significantly to a functioning global economy, as the Ukraine war was not the only impressive demonstration. At the same time, these SCs rely on functioning systems maintained by time-consuming and costly cybersecurity and resilience measures, which are made more secure primarily in large enterprises. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), on the other hand, are often vulnerable to security breaches because they do not have the resources to adequately protect themselves. Despite this higher vulnerability, large enterprises are the focus of this interdisciplinary research area.