The Department of Homeland Security is moving ahead with plans to beef up security for the global IT supply chain and, by extension, for the federal government. DHS has announced formation of the Information and Communications Technology Supply Chain Risk Management Task Force, a public-private partnership designed to examine and develop “consensus recommendations” to identify and manage risk to the global ICT supply chain. One of its key goals is to help prevent agencies from buying technologies with security problems.
The task force is a key component of the DHS Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management Program to address risks to ICT product and service supply chains by developing and deploying supply chain risk management capabilities for federal civilian agencies; private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators; and state, local, tribal and territorial governments.