Supply Chain Management: Yuval Eizik On How To Ensure Product Security in Collaboration with External Vendors and Partners

An Interview With David Leichner

Regularly audit and monitor vendor activities and compliance with security protocols. An example is the partnership between a healthcare provider and a third-party billing company. The provider conducted regular audits, ensuring that patient data regulated by the billing company remained secure and compliant.

In an increasingly interconnected world, maintaining the security of products while working with external partners and vendors presents a crucial challenge. How do product security managers ensure this vital aspect of supply chain management? What best practices, technologies, and strategies do they employ to guarantee the safety of products throughout their lifecycle, especially when these goods may pass through multiple external entities? As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Yuval Eizik.

Yuval Eizik is a 22-year mechanical engineering and computer science student from Israel Tel Aviv. Yuval Started his online business on yuvaleizikblog.com. He shares his knowledge on this website, provides freelancing services, and earns money from affiliate marketing in his blogs. Yuval has a background in IT in the IDF in Mamram — the unit for data management systems and computers.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?

I lived and stayed my whole life in Israel Tel Aviv. Grew up with no brothers in a single-parent household. Having a lot of disadvantages, I still Focused a lot on studying and building myself as much as possible. In high school, I Taught myself 7 programming languages, which allowed me to get a lucrative job in the army service. This job was in IT, and it taught me so much about computers. I used all this knowledge to build insanely complex projects like a robot that can play Simon or a solar panel that automatically rotates to the sun. During this time, my goals weren’t to make money, but 6 months ago, I decided to focus on that. This was when I entered the online business world, creating my first business at yuvaleizikblog.com. I could share my knowledge on this platform and earn passive income through affiliate marketing.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in this field? We’d love to hear it.

As I mentioned, growing up with just a mother wasn’t easy, but thank god it was a dedicated one. Along the way, from the little things, like giving me private lessons, sports lessons, and much more, I wouldn’t be able to focus so much on studying. I didn’t even have to pay for college, so I could open an online business while studying mechanical engineering and computer science. I ended up making her the perfect website for her job in return at orlyeiziktherapy.com.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?

The most important story I have is the snowball effect I got In this business. So when creating an online presence, you start with 0 domain rating, 0 domain authority, 0 followers, 0 visitors, and 0 companies who work with you. The beauty of it is if you interlink between those aspects, they increase each other. You place your social media accounts On the website, you post on social media about your blogs, you get traffic, you increase your Google rating thus gaining more visitors and followers, and so on. So watching the authority flywheel is one of the most satisfying things you have in this business.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Yes, I’m working on automated affiliate software. Scripts that run on the web will create pins upload them to pinterest and send people to nice landing pages. If that will work well and grant me nice passive income I will share it so others will be able to use it too.

Ok, thank you. Let’s now move on to our main topic. Can you share a few reasons why it is so critical to ensure product security in collaboration with external vendors, in today’s environment?

Ensuring product security in collaboration with external vendors is critical in today’s environment due to cyber-attacks and the interconnectedness of digital ecosystems. Vendors have access to sensitive data and systems, making them potential spreaders of your business essentials. A breach in a vendor’s approach can lead to unauthorized access, data leaks, and reputational damage for all the parties that are involved.

How do emerging technologies like AI and machine learning augment the collaborative efforts between organizations and external vendors in securing the supply chain, and could you share a case where leveraging technology markedly enhanced product security?

AI and machine learning help companies and their vendors work together to make the supply chain (the steps a product takes from being made to reaching the customer) more secure. These technologies can spot risks, watch for unusual activities, check if vendors follow the rules, protect data, and predict future threats.

One tangible example is IBM and Maersk working together on a TradeLens project. They used a unique technology called blockchain to track shipping data securely. Everyone involved could see this data, but no one could tamper with it. This technology made trading safer and smoother, reduced mistakes and paperwork, and ensured the products were secure throughout the journey.

How do you identify and mitigate risks to product security when working with external vendors and partners in the supply chain, and could you share an instance where a proactive approach averted a significant security breach?

Identifying and mitigating risks in the product security business when working with external vendors and partners involves: conducting thorough security assessments, evaluating data access, and analyzing the entire supply chain for vulnerabilities. Mitigation strategies include:

• Establishing clear contractual obligations for data encryption.
• Security training.
• Having a robust incident response plan.
• Regular audits.

What are some strategies and frameworks you employ in third-party vendor management to uphold product security, possibly highlighting a partnership that stands as a benchmark in industry practices?

In order to ensure product security with third-party vendors, you would need to conduct risk assessments to check the vendor’s security practices, create clear Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to set expectations, perform regular audits to ensure compliance with security standards, and have plan ready in case of security incidents.

As Industry 4.0 and smart factories gain traction, how are strategies and approaches evolving to foster product security within the supply chain?

As Industry 4.0 and intelligent factories advance, strategies for ensuring product security within the supply chain are rapidly evolving. Cybersecurity measures, including firewalls, encryption, and frequent software updates, have been prioritized to shield against increasing cyber threats. Blockchain technology improves the transparency and traceability of transfers, securing transactions and reducing risks.

Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Best Practices for Ensuring Product Security in Collaboration with External Vendors and Partners”?

Conduct a research on the vendor:

Before engaging with any vendor, find reviews on them and thoroughly assess their security policies and reputation.

Establish Clear Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Contracts:

Clearly define and agree on the responsibilities and expectations related to security.

Implement Regular Security Monitoring and Audits:

Regularly audit and monitor vendor activities and compliance with security protocols. An example is the partnership between a healthcare provider and a third-party billing company. The provider conducted regular audits, ensuring that patient data regulated by the billing company remained secure and compliant.

Develop Joint Incident Response Plans:

Work together with vendors to create and rehearse happening reply plans.

Educate and Train Both Parties on Security Awareness:

Regularly update and train internal teams and vendors on the latest security threats and best practices. For example, a software development company introduced its developers and its external coding partners to secure coding practices, significantly reducing the happening of security weaknesses in the software they developed.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I believe that everything is energy, and there is good and bad energy, so everything that is excellent energy, happiness, courage, ambition should be promoted around the world

How can our readers further follow your work online?

They are welcome to view my website on yuvaleizikblog.com, more specifically, the blogging section.

Thank you so much for the time you spent doing this interview. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success.

About The Interviewer: David Leichner is a veteran of the Israeli high-tech industry with significant experience in the areas of cyber and security, enterprise software and communications. At Cybellum, a leading provider of Product Security Lifecycle Management, David is responsible for creating and executing the marketing strategy and managing the global marketing team that forms the foundation for Cybellum’s product and market penetration. Prior to Cybellum, David was CMO at SQream and VP Sales and Marketing at endpoint protection vendor, Cynet. David is the Chairman of the Friends of Israel and Member of the Board of Trustees of the Jerusalem Technology College. He holds a BA in Information Systems Management and an MBA in International Business from the City University of New York.