In a nutshell: Cyber resilience must be planned across ecosystems rather than within individual organizations, as dependencies create attack vectors and propagation pathways for security incidents.
Mutual dependencies between enterprises and their partners create vulnerabilities that can trigger cascading effects during system outages or cyberattacks. For CISOs, strengthening cyber resilience across organizational boundaries is therefore central.
Modern enterprise ecosystems are characterized by tight interconnections: supply chains, API integrations, cloud dependencies and partner networks create interdependencies that have a stabilizing effect but also create new attack surfaces. A disruption at one actor can quickly propagate to dependent systems and cause significant impacts across multiple organizations.
From a cybersecurity perspective, the risk lies in the fact that enterprises often control only their direct systems, but not the security practices of their suppliers, integrators, or cloud providers. A vulnerability in the ecosystem can become an entry point for attackers who then penetrate interconnected systems.
CISOs must therefore understand cyber resilience as an ecosystem property: this includes regular review of dependencies, contractual security requirements for partners (as increasingly mandated under NIS2), incident response plans for scenarios with external triggers, and monitoring of critical third-party interfaces. Segmentation and decentralization of critical systems can also reduce risks.
Source: www.computerweekly.com · Published 22 May 2026
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