2026 Wholesale & Retail Report: Cyber Exposure in the Age of Digital Supply Chain Attacks

by the Black Kite Research Group

The Interconnected Supply Chain is the New Critical Risk

Retail (selling directly to consumers) and Wholesale (selling goods to Retailers) represent two sequential and operationally connected stages in the go-to-market supply chain.

A disruption to one—whether a Wholesaler’s logistics system or a Retailer’s POS infrastructure—immediately ripples outward to impact the other. But the two are connected by more than their go-to-market strategy. The greatest risk for both sectors is concentrated in their shared supply chain.

Since major Retail and Wholesale companies rely on many of the same essential vendors—spanning IT service providers, software platforms, and financial services—a single vulnerability in a common vendor can create systemic impact across the entire ecosystem, affecting both Retail and Wholesale companies simultaneously.

What’s more, the interconnectedness between Retail and Wholesale is aggressively exploited by today’s ransomware groups and they both share common attack vectors. Threat actors view the Retail/Wholesale landscape as a single, lucrative target that are likely to pay out to minimize supply chain disruption.

In this report, we’ll look at the full view of cyber risk for this interconnected industry. The data empowers cybersecurity leaders and business executives to understand the most pressing risks and learn how to proactively manage their third-party cyber risk to protect their organizations from supply chain disruptions.

Key Statistics

of major Retail companies (>$1B revenue) have corporate mail credentials found in Stealer Logs, meaning unauthorized initial access is often already available to threat actors.

> The internal defense has already failed.

of critical supply chain vendors also have Stealer Log findings, demonstrating that the entire ecosystem shares the same weakness.

> A shared weakness magnifies the potential impact of an attack.

of 236 Retail ransomware victims (17%) had revenue over $1 Billion, demonstrating that threat actors prioritize 'big game hunting' in the Retail sector.

> Retail is a specific target for high-value extortion.

of 400 Wholesale ransomware victims (39%) had revenues in the mid-market range of $20M–$100M, demonstrating that attackers are playing a 'volume game' on smaller enterprises.

> Mid-market Wholesale is a target for rapid returns.

of critical supply chain vendors are exposed to at least one vulnerability from the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog, listing flaws currently under active attack.

> The risk is not theoretical; it's being actively exploited today.

Vendor categories — Professional & Technical Services (793) and Information (705), totaling 1,498 companies — dominate the supply chain, outnumbering physical categories by a significant margin.

> The unexpected volume of digital partners creates a broader, interconnected risk surface.

Key Takeaways

The Expanded Ecosystem is the New Threat:

The main threat has fundamentally shifted from traditional concerns of the physical supply chain (warehouses and shipping) to a complex, interconnected network where, unexpectedly, digital partners now outnumber physical providers.

Credential Theft is the Dominant Access Vector:

Stealer Logs and leaked credentials are the single most acute risk, allowing attackers to bypass perimeter controls and MFA to gain immediate network access.

Patching Must Target KEV:

The industry and its vendors must urgently prioritize patching the specific vulnerabilities listed in the CISA KEV catalog, particularly those granting Remote Code Execution (RCE), as these are the exact flaws active ransomware groups are weaponizing today.

Retail vs. Wholesale Strategy:

While Wholesale faces a higher volume of attacks against mid-market firms, Retail remains the target for high-value extortion and specialized credential theft groups due to its size and high exposure.

This report analyzes three distinct but interconnected datasets to provide a complete picture of the cyber risk landscape across the Retail and Wholesale sectors.

Our report follows a logical progression: We first examine "The Victim" by analyzing past attacks, then assess "The Current Posture" of the industry's largest players, and finally, map "The Future Risk" hidden in their shared supply chain.