Next Big Thing in Big Data: The Security of the ICT Supply Chain

In contemporary society, with supply chains becoming more and more complex, the data in supply chains increases by means of volume, variety and velocity. Big data rise in response to the proper time and conditions to offer advantages for the nodes in supply chains to solve prewiously difficult problems. For any big data project to succeed, it must first depend on high-quality data but not merely on quantity. Further, it will become increasingly important in many big data projects to add external data to the mix and companies will eventually turn from only looking inward to also looking outward into the market, which means the use of big data must be broadened considerably. Hence the data supply chains, both internally and externally, become of prime importance. ICT (Information and Telecommunication) supply chain management is especially important as supply chain link the world closely and ICT supply chain is the base of all supply chains in today's world. Though many initiatives to supply chain security have been developed and taken into practice, most of them are emphasized in physical supply chain which is addressed in transporting cargos. The research on ICT supply chain security is still in preliminary stage. The use of big data can promote the normal operation of ICT supply chain as it greatly improve the data collecting and processing capacity and in turn, ICT supply chain is a necessary carrier of big data as it produces all the software, hardware and infrastructures for big data's collection, storage and application. The close relationship between big data and ICT supply chain make it an effective way to do research on big data security through analysis on ICT supply chain security. This paper first analyzes the security problems that the ICT supply chain is facing in information management, system integrity and cyberspace, and then introduces several famous international models both on physical supply chain and ICT supply chain. After that the authors describe a case of communication equipment with big data in ICT supply chain and propose a series of recommendations conducive to developing secure big data supply chain from five dimensions.