By Dr. Hadi Ghanbari, Assistant Professor at Aalto Univeristy, Academic Fellow at Center for Digital Business Growth
Modern organizations rely heavily on digital technologies to operate and generate economic value. However, this high digital dependency exposes systems to a greater risk of cyber incidents and attacks, especially since these systems are highly interrelated and distributed across organizational boundaries. The failure of a single digital asset or security mechanism can halt an organization’s operations, compromise its entire supply chain’s security, and affect thousands of downstream customers. That is why supply chain attacks, like the SolarWinds and Kaseya attacks, are on the rise. In this environment, maintaining digital resilience—the capacity to prevent, withstand, adapt to, and recover from cyber incidents and digital shocks—has become a core business capability that contributes to a firm’s value-generation capabilities. Drawing on our recent case study of an European manufacturer, we show how to move beyond business continuity and maintain digital resilience.
Building digital resilience starts with aligning cybersecurity cybersecurity incident management and business continuity planning to protect not only critical data but also operational bottlenecks that can disrupt the entire value chain. It requires agile and simplified cybersecurity incident response (CSIR) processes as well as clear cross-functional collaboration so organizations can act quickly, cohesively, and adaptively under pressure. Moreover, resilience is built through continuous learning—using every incident and near miss to improve capabilities, close gaps, and enhance preparedness over time.
Based on Research
Ghanbari, H., Koskinen, K., & Wei, Y. (2024). From SolarWinds to Kaseya: The rise of supply chain attacks in a digital world. Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases. https://doi.org/10.1177/20438869241299823
Ghanbari, H., & Koskinen, K. (2025). When ransomware hits the fan: Navigating a ransomware attack in the manufacturing industry. Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases. https://doi.org/10.1177/20438869251349852
Learn more about Hadi Ghanbari’s research.