Confronting the Agentic AI Risk in Supply Chains
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Incidents over the years have revealed common weaknesses around third parties, as supply chain risks have become one of the most critical challenges for cyber security leaders.
There is a struggle to fully comprehend and integrate third-party cyber risk visibility into a broader risk management strategy, and there appears to be a growing gap that leaves organisations vulnerable to disruption and unprepared when unforeseen risks crystallise across supply chain networks.
This integration requires what is being called ‘operational resilience’. The Bank of England describes this as ensuring businesses are able to prevent disruption by adapting systems and processes to continue providing services and functions in the event of an incident; return to normal operations promptly once a disruption is over; and learn and evolve from both incidents and near misses.
In particular, the Bank of England says there are four areas that are core factors of operational resilience:
- Governance
- Operational risk management
- Business continuity planning
- Management of outsourced relationships
This sort of action requires a proactive approach to cyber security and risk management and, in particular, includes maintaining a curated inventory of approved suppliers and technologies. This involves understanding the origins of risks across the supply chain, assessing the nodes within the supply chain and how widely they spread, and evaluating response times and business impacts.
Shaping Complexity
In a recent roundtable discussion sponsored by BlueVoyant, the subject of operational resilience was examined, specifically how modern cyber security risk is increasingly shaped by the complexity of supply chains, limited visibility across ecosystems, and the accelerating impact of AI.
Opening the discussion, Tom Moore, director of digital forensics and incident response at BlueVoyant, noted a clear trend of threat actors becoming more adaptive, targeting not just organisations directly, but the broader ecosystem around them.
As companies embed external features, integrate partners, and rely on extended supply chains, they often fail to fully understand the implications. This creates hidden weaknesses that attackers are quick to exploit. In particular, as threat actors adapt and look for weaknesses in partner supply chains, there is a “whole raft of ecosystem extensions”, while the implications of external features are often neither understood nor considered.
He claimed that a key issue is visibility: many organisations simply do not know which suppliers have privileged access, which vendors rely on vulnerable software or hardware, or how long third parties have had access to their environments.
Deepened Significantly
The complexity of supply chains has also deepened significantly. Organisations rely not just on third parties, but on fourth, fifth, and even further-removed providers. Open-source components are embedded in commercial applications, SaaS platforms are built on other SaaS platforms, and infrastructure may be owned by entirely separate entities. This layered dependency model makes comprehensive oversight extremely difficult.
Moore argued that the traditional idea of a secure “castle” no longer applies. Instead, organisations operate more like interconnected airports, dependent on multiple external entities, each with its own policies and security standards.
The challenge is that responsibility becomes blurred; risks can propagate across systems before anyone recognises there is a problem. In such an environment, a single compromised supplier can provide attackers with access to multiple organisations at once.
Relationships and Processes
Moving into the wider discussion, the chair emphasised three areas of focus within operational resilience: building symbiotic relationships with suppliers, understanding how AI is changing processes, and identifying the nodes along the supply chain.
The chair said there is inherent tension in supplier relationships. While organisations depend on partners to succeed, there is often reluctance to share security information because of competitive concerns. Regulators, however, are pushing for stricter standards, creating friction between collaboration and compliance.
The panellists said that the role of the security and risk professional is to identify partners across the supply chain and “get them to be open with us”, so there is less need to keep a close watch on their activities. Another panellist added that a level of discovery is still necessary, as most organisations only “think” they understand their external connections.
One panellist said there is a “responsibility to keep subsidiaries safe” and that if you do not know what a supplier is doing, then it should not be considered part of your main business model.
Tom Moore illustrated the issue with a manufacturing analogy: even when an organisation understands its direct components, critical dependencies may exist several layers further down the chain. If a single subcomponent supplier fails, the entire system can be disrupted.
While this is not a new problem, the pace of modern digital ecosystems makes it far more difficult to manage.
Despite these challenges, there are practical steps organisations can take. Attack surface management and continuous monitoring of suppliers can help assess risk posture.
Industry collaboration, such as through information sharing and analysis centres (ISACs), can also improve shared understanding, said Holly Steele, senior vice-president of EMEA and UK at BlueVoyant, who acknowledged that there is potential to do more. She said that ISACs can do more to bring suppliers together.
Agents in the Mix
The subject of agentic AI was also prominent, as attackers can now operate with unprecedented speed and scale, using AI to automate reconnaissance, refine attack strategies, and learn continuously from interactions.
Tom Moore said that what once took weeks can now take minutes, effectively giving threat actors a 24/7 research team. This shifts the critical question from “Are we vulnerable?” to “How quickly will someone discover that vulnerability?”
At the same time, AI presents opportunities for defenders. Agentic AI systems can respond to alerts, automate actions, and establish behavioural baselines that would be impossible to manage manually. However, organisations are still struggling to integrate AI effectively into their security operations, often lagging behind attackers in adoption.
Ultimately, the most resilient organisations are not those that avoid incidents entirely, but those that are prepared to respond effectively. This requires strong communication, both internally and with suppliers, a clear understanding of data value, and a demonstrable grasp of the ecosystem in which they operate.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, the chair recommended the use of attack surface management and the continuous monitoring of suppliers to understand their risk posture. They also recommended grouping vendors by sector and treating them as critical infrastructure, depending on the regulators to which they are subject.
Tom Moore recommended sharing common challenges and themes so that everyone understands which risks are emerging as a result of tabletop exercises. He also advised surfacing common themes and running simulations that are relevant to your business.
Holly Steele suggested reviewing the contracts held with suppliers, as everything comes back to visibility and what those agreements permit suppliers to access within a network. “Bring everyone to the party, but stop navel-gazing and look elsewhere and externally,” she said.
The central takeaway is clear: organisations must move beyond inward-looking security practices and develop a comprehensive, outward-facing view of their supply chains.
Only by improving visibility, embracing collaboration, and preparing for inevitable disruption can they hope to manage risk in an increasingly interconnected and AI-driven world.