If you read one thing about vendor risk this year, make it this: supply chain attack prevention must be part of every business conversation.

Security trackers logged 79 supply-chain incidents in the first five months of 2025, affecting 22 of 24 sectors tracked. That rate shows these are not isolated glitches; they are a broad threat that reaches finance, healthcare, retail, manufacturing and more.

Big vendor failures now cause real business disruption. The UNFI cyber incident shut down ordering and shipping systems and cut into quarterly earnings, showing how supplier outages can hit revenue and operations at once. SharePoint flaws, often labeled ToolShell, allowed attackers to exploit many on-premise servers and spread quickly. These are examples of a pattern: a trusted external service becomes the attacker’s entry point.

Quick snapshot —what just happened and why you should care

What the UNFI and ToolShell cases teach is simple and hard to ignore. First, operational impact is immediate; manual workarounds cost time and money. Second, public disclosure and regulatory filings follow quickly, so executives must be ready to answer investor questions. Third, a single vendor weakness can affect many customers at once, which makes supplier visibility a business priority.

How attackers use vendors as stepping stones

Attackers do not always start with your perimeter. They look for weak APIs, unpatched vendor software, exposed CI/CD secrets, and stolen vendor credentials. Once inside a supplier, attackers can move laterally into multiple customer environments and raid sensitive data stores or inject malicious updates that reach thousands of downstream users. Recent campaigns show the speed and scale of that movement, which is why time matters so much. Treat vendor risk as a high-speed problem, measured in hours and days, not weeks.

Why old vendor checks fail

Old vendor assessments fail for three main reasons. First, they are static, so they miss new vulnerabilities that appear after an audit. Second, they are often rigid checklists that do not reflect how attackers operate. Third, procurement and security teams frequently act in separate silos, so important signals are not shared quickly. Those gaps let attackers find trusted paths and turn supplier trust into an attack corridor.

Meet the new way — AI-powered vendor risk management

Newer AI-powered vendor risk management systems pull many signals together: software bills of materials, CVE feeds, vendor telemetry, public breach reports, and exploit chatter. These are then turned into a live vendor score and clear actions. Tools like Prompt Sapper help engineers chain AI steps to summarize and explain those signals quickly.

When an AI-driven system shows why a vendor score changed, teams can act in hours instead of weeks, and executives get a number they can follow. Explainability matters: tie each risk flag to evidence and keep clear audit trails so you can explain decisions.

Regulators are raising the pressure

NIST’s updated framework includes clearer supply chain guidance and practical mapping for vendor controls. CISA issues emergency directives that require agencies and critical infrastructure operators to take swift action when serious vulnerabilities appear. The SEC is paying closer attention to cyber-related disclosures tied to suppliers, so an unchecked vendor incident can trigger financial reporting and investor questions. That combination makes vendor risk a board-level concern that requires clear reporting.

Start with a small pilot that covers your top ten vendors and expand from there as you gain confidence.

A plain playbook: how to implement real-time third-party threat intelligence

Here is a short playbook you can act on this week:

1. Collect key feeds first: SBOMs, CVE streams, and vendor telemetry. Start with a manageable set and add more later.
   
   
2. Score vendors continuously: move from pass/fail checks to a live 0 to 100 score that updates when a new CVE or suspicious signal appears.
   
   
3. Automate immediate steps: when a critical vendor score spikes, limit their access, rotate shared keys, and require a verification checklist before restoring full access.
   
   
4. Require proof of fixes: ask for logs, new hashes, or updated SBOM entries rather than accepting a single email.
   

What to watch and measure

Good metrics keep this useful and honest. Track and report these measures:

• Mean time to detect vendor issues, so leadership sees if monitoring is working.
  
  
• Mean time to limit or isolate vendor access when a serious signal appears.
  
  
• Percent of critical vendors providing continuous SBOMs and telemetry.
  

These figures show whether the program actually reduces risk and whether investments are paying off. Faster detection and containment reduce overall costs and make decisions clearer for non-technical leaders.

Standards and tools that actually help

Standards and tools that help map technical signals to attacker behavior. Use NIST CSF 2.0 for program structure and MITRE ATT&CK to translate alerts into tactics and techniques. Pick tools that do three jobs well: collect data, compute a clear vendor score, and trigger simple actions your teams can follow. If a tool only gathers data without helping you act, it adds noise, cost, and delays without protection.

Short ROI view: why this pays off

Money talks. The average breach cost remains in the multi-million dollar range, and supply chain compromises often sit at the high end of that scale. Investing in a stronger vendor risk program reduces outage time and the size of any hit. Compare early, focused prevention to the alternative: a supplier outage that halts orders, disrupts service, and forces expensive remediation and disclosure. Smart spending now buys far less pain later.

Quick checklist to start now

1. Rank your top 50 vendors by business impact.
   
   
2. Ask those vendors for SBOMs and a daily or weekly telemetry feed.
   
   
3. Set an automatic score threshold that triggers a short containment action.
   
   
4. Create a one-page update for the board that shows vendor detection time and the percentage of critical vendors with live feeds.
   

A brief pilot will expose gaps and help you make informed decisions with confidence. Start small, prioritize vendors that touch payments or customer data, and scale the program as you see measurable improvements in detection and containment times.

How iRM can help (and a simple ask)

Contact iRM through the Contact Us page to schedule a supply chain risk assessment. Use that conversation to understand where your top vendors stand and which immediate step will make the biggest difference for your business. Contact us today to initiate the discussion. Contact iRM to begin.