IT supply chain integrity set to top enterprise wish lists

Gartner Maverick research reveals growing concerns among enterprises about trustworthiness of their supply chain

By 2017, IT supply chain integrity will be one of the top three security concerns among enterprises, according to data released by Gartner.

The firm's Maverick research looked into the supply chain - defined as the process of managing an organisation's internal capabilities, as well as its partners and suppliers. Supply chain integrity is key, the research found, whether a solution is developed in-house or purchased from a third party.

Neil MacDonald, research vice president at Gartner, said: "IT supply chain integrity issues are real, and will have mainstream enterprise IT impact within the next five years. In the shorter term, the market for information security offerings will fragment along geopolitical lines. In the longer term, the same will happen for OSes and other IT system infrastructure software, reshaping the IT landscape moving forward.

"Enterprise IT departments must begin to make changes today to protect their systems and information in a world where all IT systems are suspect. These changes in information protection strategies will help enterprises embrace and adopt cloud computing and consumerisation, which have strikingly similar issues with untrusted systems."

Ray Valdes, research vice president at Gartner, added: "IT supply chain integrity issues are expanding from hardware into software and information. They are growing more complex as IT systems are assembled from a large number of geographically diverse providers and are now of mainstream concern to enterprise IT.

"These issues are not just about defence and intelligence. This has significant implications for businesses, governments and individuals moving forward in a world where the integrity of the IT supply chain is no longer completely trustable, and where all layers of the IT stack will be targeted for supply chain compromise."