welcome 2 IN THE CHAIR


brand image, customer relationships, and financial performance.


The EU Agency’s 57-page study is a timely reminder of the risks and well worth reading. You’ll find a link to download it on page 11 of this issue.


We are also grateful to Everstream Analytics for sharing their insight into the threats posed to supply chains in South Africa after the country’s former President was taken into custody in July. Very few countries present the same high level of risk as South Africa at any time and the rumbling undercurrent of unrest is always threatening to boil over. Since early July, this has certainly been the case with many violent and damaging attacks on facilities and trucking operations.


THE THREAT LANDSCAPE FOR SUPPLY CHAINS EXTENDS WELL BEYOND COVID


With all the media attention around Covid over the past 18 months, it has often felt like it is the only challenge to the resilience of global supply chains … but, of course, this is far from the case.


TAPA EMEA members know only too well that threats are everywhere and they come in many guises.


Two of these are featured prominently in this issue; cybersecurity and the consequences of political and social unrest. Cyberattacks impact big businesses daily and, as the European Union’s Agency for Cybersecurity points out in its new study ‘Threat Landscape for Supply Chain Attacks’, the numbers of incidents are growing rapidly. The study looked at 24 cyber incidents impacting supply chains in the last 18 months


and goes on to predict a four-fold rise in these types of attacks over the whole of 2021. This upward trend is likely to continue well into 2022 and beyond.


As we have previously discussed in presentations at TAPA EMEA conferences, cybercriminals will always look for the weakest link in a security chain. Very often, the ‘doorway’ for cyberattacks on big businesses can be provided by a much smaller supplier somewhere along their supply chain which is unlikely to deploy the same strict cybersecurity systems and protocols as their ultimate customer. Some businesses may be in denial at the level of threat they face but evidence suggests it is SME-type companies which are becoming a much more frequent target for hackers and cybercriminals and, as we have seen in the last 2-3 years, this can result in substantial damage to the victim company’s


‘Is this the true picture? Is cargo crime in such decline or has the turmoil of the last 18 months made us forget about the importance of sharing incident data?’


Our report ‘Under Attack’, on pages 12-14, looks at the latest incidents and the hotspots for the worst levels of criminal activity.


When you read this, please bear in mind how difficult it remains to gain cargo crime incident intelligence in South Africa as well as so many other countries across the EMEA region. For this reason, we ask that when you see any news of a cargo theft, you think to send the link to iis@tapaemea.org


In H1/2021, cargo crimes recorded by TAPA EMEA’s Incident Information Service (IIS) fell significantly year-over-year. Is this the true picture? Is cargo crime in such decline or has the turmoil of the last 18 months made us forget about the importance of sharing incident data? To some extent, we will rely on you to tell us. Even with far fewer incidents to report, H1/2021 still saw recorded losses in the EMEA region of over €72 million and a daily loss average for the 181 days in this period of €399,257. When you then also consider that, in over 75% of incident reports to IIS, we received no financial data, it suggests the only thing which has changed is crime reporting. Now is the time to get this back on track.


MARCEL SAARLOOS Chair TAPA EMEA


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