Autoliv, Inc. 10-K Cybersecurity & GRC – 2024-02-20 Filing Highlights

Autoliv, Inc.’s 10-K filing dated 2024-02-20 emphasizes governance oversight, formal risk assessments, and incident response readiness as core elements of cyber risk management. To act now, adopt a risk-based scoring model that prioritizes threat likelihood and impact and run quarterly reviews with senior leadership to translate cyber risk into business decisions.

With a focus on third-party relationships and data handling, the filing notes that risk coverage includes vendor onboarding, contract security provisions, and ongoing posture assessments of providers. They stress that threat intelligence should be integrated into the control framework so that activities across different time zones and business units stay aligned. A practical step is to enable a self-serviced risk dashboard that collects evidence and highlights gaps in real time, helping teams to act quickly.

To improve efficiencies, consolidate controls into a single GRC platform and automate testing, evidence collection, and remediation tracking. The filing shows that improving visibility into the control environment matters to the board and helps translate cyber risk into concrete metrics. Include a clear mapping of risk to business processes, including the most critical trade-offs between security controls and operational needs, and ensure assessing results are updated frequently.

Practical steps you can take now: 1) map material threats to key activities and deploy self-serviced workflows for risk owners; 2) implement a vendor risk module to continuously assess providers; 3) establish regular incident readiness exercises; 4) align security investments with risk-based priorities to lower overall exposure time and avoid duplicative efforts. They asked for evidence that controls are tested regularly and that management reviews the risk posture with the same cadence as financial reporting.

By keeping the program tightly integrated with business units, Autoliv can maintain resilience across manufacturing sites and logistics networks while reducing red tape. The aim is assessing risk as an ongoing activity rather than a periodic checkbox, ensuring that risk signals from providers and suppliers translate into timely actions that matter to customers and shareholders.

Practical breakdown from the 10-K outlining steps for robust supply chain risk governance

Adopt a committee-led, real-time risk dashboard to govern supply chain risk across the entire supplier network. This move creates visibility where it matters and gives leadership a single view for prioritizing actions.

This approach integrates cybersecurity with safety and product quality, aligning autolivs goals with the governance program and ensuring they stay accountable for results across supplier relationships.

Form a supply chain risk committee with cross-functional representation: procurement, engineering, manufacturing, IT, compliance, and field operations. Define a mandate to review supplier risk, approve mitigations, and allocate resources.

Map the entire supplier base and classify by product lines. Apply filters to segment by critical products, geography, and tier. Track residual risk and escalate when risk crosses thresholds.

Build the data backbone using a spreadsheet as a core source of truth while feeding real-time signals from ERP, PLM, and supplier portals. Note источник of data and ensure data quality controls to avoid orphan records.

Face incidents swiftly by rehearsing scene-driven playbooks: containment, remediation, and recovery steps. Use incident dashboards to alert the committee and track the response timeline.

Link operations with continuous improvement by tying remediation outcomes to productivity metrics and improving workflows, and reallocate resources where needed. The cadence of reviews should be quarterly, with rapid cycles after major disruptions.

Asked by auditors and boards, document control measures, risk indices, and escalation criteria in a simple, repeatable template. This helps management eye risk across the supply base and keeps products aligned with safety standards.

In this program, use artificial intelligence to surface anomalies and recommended actions, but let the committee make final decisions. AI helps triage alerts and reduces noise in the real-time stream of supply data.

Finally, align with Autoliv’s core governance by recording lessons learned in a centralized repository and sharing updates in real time with the entire team. Use a transparent scene to illustrate risk exposure and remediation status.

Extracting Cybersecurity Highlights from the 10-K Filing

Map Autoliv’s cybersecurity highlights to your risk posture now, then implement MFA, patch cadence, and incident drills to improve visibility and safety across factory and office networks.

Key areas include analytics-driven risk ranking, centralized communication between IT and OT, and a governance chain that meets formal policies. The filing describes cross-functional oversight, with documented risk assessments, control owners, and regular reviews to keep security efforts aligned with business priorities.

Autoliv emphasizes visibility across complex environments by combining data from multiple systems into a unified dashboard joined by IT, OT, and safety teams that operators can rely on. This approach supports simple, proactive risk management and helps safety-critical operations align across the factory floor and the supply chains.

In supplier risk, the filing notes several vendors and the need to include cybersecurity requirements in vendor contracts, with ongoing monitoring to ensure policies are met across the chains. This creates an opportunity to strengthen analytics and risk scoring across the supply networks and ensures that security controls extend to key external partners.

Operational resilience is built through incident response plans, drills, and a 24/7 security operations center. The 10-K describes a patch management cadence and regular backups to minimize downtime, with a plan to optimize recovery times that will preserve production continuity across several factories.

To translate these highlights into action: compose a policy baseline that covers access controls, encryption, and vendor risk; deploy a simple, scalable monitoring layer; and align with a joined governance forum that includes IT, OT, safety, and operations teams. This supports fully integrated risk strategies and meets regulatory expectations, boosting visibility across analytics, systems, and chains. Thats a practical next step for teams ready to act.

Linking GRC Objectives to Corporate Policies and Board Oversight

Align GRC objectives with corporate policies by creating a formal mapping that links each objective to specific policies, a control set, owners, and board reporting lines. This alignment enables the board to see how protection and risk mitigation are embedded into the operational program and to ask targeted questions during reviews.

1. Formal policy-objective mapping and governance structure
   • Develop a policy-objective matrix that ties each GRC objective to at least one policy, a defined control, an owner, and a KPI/KRI. Ensure the matrix covers different risk categories, including cyber, data protection, supplier risk, physical security of equipment, and regulatory compliance.
   • Link assessments to policy requirements so findings drive policy updates and control enhancements.
   • Assign a clear owner for each row (CISO, Chief Compliance Officer, or Head of Risk) and embed this in the governance charter.
2. Policy ownership, board oversight, and cadence
   • Define standing committees (Audit, Risk) with a regular cadence of quarterly updates and ad hoc briefings when risks cross thresholds.
   • Respond to board asked questions by producing targeted policy changes and action plans, then track closure in reports.
   • Maintain a policy change log that documents rationale, impact, and retroactive implications within the risk register.
3. Operational integration and asset protection
   • Embed GRC requirements into an immersive program for business units, ensuring assets and materials are included in the asset inventory (equipment, devices, and facilities).
   • Map controls to protect critical equipment and safeguard goods throughout the supply chain, including vendor-produced goods and internal materials.
   • Coordinate incident response, change management, and access controls to support operational resilience.
4. Assessments, reporting cadence, and long-term visibility
   • Implement regular assessments (risk assessments, control testing, third-party reviews) with findings feeding reports to management and the board.
   • Apply a longer horizon for trend analysis to detect creeping risks and emerging threats.
   • Produce concise executive summaries and deeper dive reports that translate technical results into business impact and protection status.
5. Mitigation, challenges, and continuous improvement
   • Prioritize remediation by risk level and update policies to reflect changing risk posture and organizational needs.
   • Address challenges such as data quality gaps, cross-functional coordination, and third-party risk through defined action owners and timelines.
   • Integrate lessons learned into the GRC program to reduce repeat findings and improve controlling maturity.
6. Artificial intelligence governance and controls
   • Identify artificial intelligence risks that affect policy compliance, data handling, and decision transparency.
   • Establish model risk controls, data governance standards, and monitoring to ensure safe and compliant AI use.
7. Reporting to executives and board oversight
   • Provide reports that balance detail and readability, including most critical risk indicators and actions taken to mitigate them.
   • Include standing items that the board reviews regularly, with owners assigned for action and deadlines tracked in the program.

The program emphasizes continuous assessing of risk posture, enabling timely corrections and continuous learning across teams.

By connecting GRC objectives to corporate policies and board oversight, management gains a clear, auditable path from risk assessment to action, ensuring protection, mitigate, and resilience across organizational units, while stakeholders can track progress through reports and metrics.

Asset and Vendor Inventory: Identify Critical Suppliers and Data Flows

Create a live asset and vendor inventory that flags high-risk suppliers and their data exchanges, attaching a risk score to each entry to support current planning and faster decision-making. Leverage existing policies already in place to guide collection, validation, and updates, fulfilling organizational goals while keeping teams aligned across functions. Their aggregated view reduces blind spots in supplier governance and sets a clear basis for risk-based actions.

Identify assets and data types, including materials, firmware, software licenses, and design data, then map data flows across Autoliv, tier suppliers, contract manufacturers, and logistics partners. Use tisax-aligned criteria to tag data sensitivity and access controls, and categorize vendors into different risk tiers to reflect their impact on the automotive supply chain.

Adopt a streamlined, tailored process that consolidates data into a comprehensive repository accessible to the organizational leadership and operational teams. Align the inventory with current planning cycles, provide faster visibility into supplier dependencies, and capture materials provenance and security controls used by each vendor.

Use filters to surface gaps in coverage, such as missing risk assessments or outdated licenses, and generate reports that show trends, controls gaps, and remediation status. The approach improves quality and consistency, helps track progress against tisax requirements without overburdening teams, and fulfills their governance obligations.

Advantages include better vendor collaboration, clearer accountability, and streamlined onboarding for new suppliers, which reduces cycle time and supports faster responses to incidents. An organized, policy-driven inventory also lowers risk of data leakage by clarifying who has access to their data and how it flows across materials and systems, improving organizational resilience without duplicating efforts.

To execute, assign owners for asset groups, define data sensitivity levels, create data-flow diagrams, integrate with existing supplier scorecards, and schedule periodic reviews to maintain current accuracy. Maintain a dedicated repository for planning and reporting that supports faster decisions and continuous improvement of the automotive cybersecurity posture.

Vendor Risk Assessment: Criteria, Evidence, and Contractual Controls

Implement a tiered risk framework immediately, classifying vendors into high, medium, and low risk based on data access, system integration, and material dependencies.

Identify criteria across four domains: data sensitivity, access scope, system interfaces, and supplier controls. Based on objective evidence, categorize vendors into both risk levels and ownership groups. Use concrete signals to guide decisions, including the number of access points, service criticality, and materials flow through manufacturing systems.

Evidence should span three buckets: ongoing monitoring data, formal assessments, and incident history. Conduct reviews with a balanced set of methods from security and procurement teams to identify gaps, then integrate sources into a large, unified dashboard that supports integrated vendor oversight and boosts productivity across the supplier base.

Leverage low-code workflows to automate evidence collection, escalation, and reporting across the vendor risk program. This accelerates identify-and-remediate cycles and reduces manual effort for different teams, while preserving governance and traceability.

Contractual controls must meet the defined risk tier and address data handling, incident response, and contractor management. Include data protection terms, encryption requirements, access controls, audit rights, subcontractor oversight, and clear escalation paths with notification timelines. Involve an expert to tailor clauses for future vendor profiles and evolving operational needs, ensuring contracts meet both security and business objectives.

Over time, the approach delivers opportunities to reduce incident response times, consolidate materials and data across systems, and streamline contractor oversight. By focusing on evidence-based criteria, you can identify gaps quickly, drive additional improvements, and maintain a practical path to future resilience.

Incident Response for Supply Chain Disruptions: Detection, Containment, and Recovery

Implement autolivs integrated incident response approach to meet most RTOs by detecting disruptions within hours, containing them quickly, and recovering entire operations with minimal costs.

Detection relies on continuous monitoring of procurement data, supplier portals, contractor activity, and code repositories, including automated anomaly alerts and supplier-risk scoring aligned to the nist framework. This enables the CISO and procurement teams to meet threats quickly and escalate signals for containment.

Containment actions include isolating affected environments, revoking compromised credentials, applying network segmentation, and switching to alternate suppliers, while communicating with contractors to prevent threats from cascading. For a large supplier base, automated containment reduces exposure without disrupting operations and preserves data integrity.

Recovery steps include validating component integrity, reestablishing procurement with alternative suppliers, verifying delivery and quality, and running regression checks on production. Document data feeds, align with internal controls, and apply lessons learned throughout the lifecycle to support sürdürülebilir operations.

The governance structure places the CISO in charge, with dedicated resources to support a thorough playbook that spans detection, containment, and recovery across procurement and the large supplier network, coordinated by autolivs. All activities align with applicable standards and nist controls, while contractors receive continuous training to meet evolving threats.

Monitoring, Metrics, and Reporting to Sustain Risk Visibility

Establish a centralized risk dashboard that consolidates incident data, supplier risk assessments, and consultant findings; align every metric to nist controls and refresh the data daily to sustain standing visibility across the organization.

• Define core metrics and targets that drive faster decisions: MTTD (mean time to detect) and MTTR (mean time to respond) reductions, incident counts by threat type, vulnerability remediation rate, and control coverage gaps. Aim for a 30% faster detection and a 25% faster remediation cycle within the next two quarters, while maintaining same data quality across inputs.
• Integrate diverse data sources into a single system: internal security events, asset inventory, vulnerability scans, supplier risk portals, and consultant findings. This twin stream of internal and supplier data enhances experiences by revealing blind spots and guiding transforming actions.
• Map metrics to risk drivers and compliance requirements: link incident trends to critical business processes, supplier exposure, and nist-aligned controls. Produce a clear heat map that shows where resources must focus to reduce costs and boost overall resilience.
• Establish cadence and formats for reporting: a daily signal digest for operational teams, a weekly briefing for management, and a monthly board-level update. Ensure reports meet the needs of executives without duplicating efforts or data silos.
• Govern data quality and governance: implement automated checks for data completeness, timestamp accuracy, and cross-source reconciliation. Maintain a consistent data model so experiences from different departments join into a cohesive narrative rather than creating conflicting views.
• Plan for resource optimization and cost awareness: quantify costs of configuring and maintaining the dashboard versus savings from faster response and fewer incidents. Track opportunity costs avoided when automated workflows replace manual tasks and reduce incident dwell time.
• Engage cross-functional teams and external expertise: joined efforts from security, IT, procurement, and supplier risk managers; regular meets with consultants to benchmark against other organizations and incorporate best practices. This collaboration strengthens the system and expands the pool of experienced insights.
• Develop and test incident response playbooks: codify standard tasks, owner roles, and escalation paths. Use weekly drills to validate data flows, ensure timely reporting, and accelerate recovery with consistent, repeatable actions.
• Capture lessons and experiences after incidents: document what worked, what didn’t, and how supplier relations affected outcomes. Feed these experiences back into continuous improvement cycles to transform future responses and keep the system ahead of evolving threats.

In practice, this approach creates a proactive loop: predictable reporting keeps stakeholders informed, disciplined metrics reveal risk dynamics, and coordinated efforts translate insights into tangible improvements–costs kept in check, opportunities seized, and resilience strengthened across the entire organization.