Specialist national Managed Security Services provider, Advantage, has deepened its relationship with Mastercard’s
RiskRecon cyber risk management platform by becoming New Zealand’s first official reseller. Through this collaboration,
Advantage is further addressing supply chain and third-party risk for its customers around the country.
RiskRecon is a Mastercard cybersecurity solution which assesses and manages cybersecurity threats across third party
vendors and suppliers. RiskRecon's automated and continuous scanning technology helps monitor the cybersecurity
performance of a business’s vendors, 3rd party organisations, and suppliers by scanning their public facing systems and
analysing the cybersecurity risk posture of those systems.
Advantage Auckland regional manager Steve Smith, notes that the company has enjoyed a partnership with third party risk
management vendor ProcessUnity for several years. “This is a dedicated third-party risk management platform which uses a
portion of RiskRecon. Having seen RiskRecon in action, we saw the benefit of adding it to our portfolio in full,
providing our customers continuous external visibility of their risk, and the potential risks their supply chain
partners may introduce.”
Supply chain breaches occur when cyber attackers exploit a vulnerability in one organisation (a supplier or customer) as
an intermediate step, later compromising data and assets at other points in the supply chain. Detecting these incidents
is difficult owing to added complexity of the interrelation of linked but separate technology systems. As a result, the
global average time of detection and containment is 277 days.
“The longer the detection time, the more potential damage an attacker can cause,” says Smith. “That’s where RiskRecon
can really add value to our customers.”
While insight isn’t available for the New Zealand market, Statista nevertheless indicates exponential growth in supply
chain breaches. It reports that 1,743 organisations in the United States were impacted by a supply chain breach in 2022,
representing growth of an estimated 235% year-over-year since 2017.
Mallika Sathi, Vice President, Cyber & Intelligence, Australasia at Mastercard, says constantly evolving threats demand coordinated approaches incorporating
technology and human ingenuity. “Cybercriminals are notorious for their rapid adoption of increasingly sophisticated
strategies while using emerging technology to their advantage. RiskRecon’s unique scanning and evaluation technologies
helps proactively manage cyber risks, while safeguarding critical intellectual property, consumer and payment data.”
Sathi welcomes the roll out of Risk Recon with Advantage, describing it as a collaboration towards a safer and more
secure digital experience. “RiskRecon will deliver real-time, continuous information, enabling their customers to
identify and resolve issues before they cause damage. This means better cyber security protection for New Zealand’s
organisations against the growing trend of supply chain threats.”