Protect COVID-19, other supply chains with a new approach

U.S. manufacturers are the top target for nationstate adversarial cyberattacks from foreign nations. These adversaries aim to disrupt the nation’s economy and global competitiveness, reduce the ability of manufacturers to deliver goods and erode U.S. innovations in advanced manufacturing.

Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored several vulnerabilities in U.S. supply chains. Notably, hackers sponsored by nationstates have targeted the COVID-19 cold supply chain, which is critical to the transport of temperature-sensitive products such as vaccines.

The chief targets have been companies and organizations associated with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance’s Cold Chain Equipment Optimization Platform. Gavi is an effort to streamline and strengthen the cold supply chain.

At the start of this year, for example, China attempted to cyberattack Moderna, a leading COVID-19 manufacturer. In July, officials from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada identified Russian hackers targeting vaccine development, presumably for competitive advantages.

Earlier this month, reports emerged that North Korean hackers cyberattacked at least six pharmaceutical companies in the U.S., U.K. and South Korea, seeking critical information to sell or weaponize. These attacks are concerning given the delicate and precise nature of vaccines.

As we plan COVID-19 vaccine distribution, the logistics and operation of cold supply chains is pivotal. Preventing an attack requires cybersecurity diligence at each step of the vaccine supply chain.

While specific steps are being taken to prevent any harm stemming from these attacks, we must do more. We need to develop supply chains that are “PURE”:

Pandemic-adaptive, including operational modes that accommodate pervasive physical (social) distancing and remote work.

• Usable and accessible to everyone, such as soldiers, factory workers and engineers.

• Resilient, agile and able to withstand physical-world challenges, such as pandemics, electrical grid failures and cyberattacks.

• Economical so resiliency and security are maintained at all levels of the supply chain, including with small- and mediumsize manufacturers.

The University of Texas at San Antonio and other universities have partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy to protect the nation’s manufacturers, including pharmaceutical manufacturers, from cyberattacks through its Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute, or CyManII. The public-private consortium includes 59 industry, university and nonprofit partners, as well as three national labs and four Manufacturing Innovation Institutes.

One key innovation that this institute will supply to manufacturers is the “cyber physical passport.” This passport enables cyber-physical identification, tracking and verification of parts, compounds and products in a uniform, hierarchical fashion with a framework extensible to variety of processes across sectors, from petroleum refining to vaccine development and distribution.

By using the cyber physical passport in their supply chains, manufacturers will be able to reprogram their processes and adapt to the current state of the supply chain network with extreme granularity. To ward off cyberattacks, CyManII will ensure this reprogramming can be done in hours, helping to nimbly protect and secure the nation’s manufacturing ecosystem in real time.

Adopting a PURE approach to manufacturing and supply chains leads to an innovative digital architecture that enables pandemic-adaptive, resilient and trusted supply chains. It is important that the vaccines developed by our nation’s researchers can be delivered to hundreds of millions and even billions of people without being compromised.

Each vaccine must be genuine, produced to its exact formula and not tampered with. Vaccineproducing facilities will benefit from a well-conceived digital architecture to become secure and significantly more efficient, flexible and resilient.

By having institutes like CyManII at UTSA, U.S. manufacturers will have the world-class resources they need to protect and secure the nation’s manufacturing ecosystem for decades.