Day 23 - May 23 - Cyber Butterfly Effect
- Elizabeth Rasnick
- May 24, 2023
- 2 min read
Today I’m combining many things of interest to me: butterflies, supply chains, and cybersecurity. This much fun should be illegal. In my glee, I thought the picture where Kelly photobombed me was too cute to not use so that’s the one you see. (I promise there were more rigid shots.)
Let’s start with the butterfly effect. The idea is that a small change in one area can have a large impact in another. For a simple example, we have a very rainy summer and the result is higher prices for steak in restaurants. Here are the steps that got us from rain to steaks.
Too much rain before corn harvest leads to
Shortage of locally available corn for beef herd feed leads to
Beef farmers paying higher prices for feed leads to
Higher prices for restaurant chefs for steaks leads to
Higher prices for steak dinners at your favorite steak house
Most effect trails are longer from start to finish, but this gives you the jist of the concept. Supply chains are also lines of interdependencies among customers and supplies. With the exception of the suppliers of the raw materials and the retail customer, every entity in a supply chain is both a customer and a supplier. I’ll reference the beer game here as an easy example to walk you through.
A customer walks into a bar and expects beer to be available.
The bar orders beer from the wholesaler.
The wholesaler orders beer from the distributor.
The distributor orders beer from the manufacturer (brewer).
(We assume hops and other ingredients are available.)
Now, let’s mix them all together and add a splash of cyber! We have an innocent retail supply chain happily manufacturing and shipping widgets. Then, on a dark and stormy night, a wicked hacker wipes out all of the ordering data for the manufacturer. The next morning, the manufacturer doesn’t know how many kegs, cans, and bottles to fill. Assuming good back-ups, they restore the data, but in the meantime, the distributor ships out all its inventory. The wholesaler delivers its inventory until it runs out. The restaurant may have enough beer on-hand and en route to continue serving beer until the problem is corrected at the manufacturer, or, it may not. The cyber butterfly effect has struck again!
The lesson here is that each and every one of us has a responsibility to maintain strong cybersecurity practices. The result of any of us slipping up is that we all may face bars with no beer or other such catastrophes.
For a more in-depth explanation:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/03/22/the-cyber-butterfly-effect-dont-let-a-weak-link-in-your-supply-chain-damage-your-business/?sh=3c2908ac54ea
For more information on the beer game:
https://beergame.org/the-game/
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