From U.S. executive orders to cyber regulations, prominent cybersecurity policies are increasing their inclusion of Third-Party Risk Management standards, and for good reason - every organization, no matter what size, is impacted by third-party risks.
If you're looking for a TPRM software solution to enhance the efficiency of your TPRM program, this post will help you evaluate the top contenders in the market.
Third-Party Risk Management vs. Vendor Risk Management
Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) addresses a broad market of third-party risks, such as those originating from the following third-party sources:
- Business affiliates
- Contractors
- Third-party suppliers
- Business partnerships
As a subset of TPRM, Vendor Risk Management (VRM) further narrows the focus of risk mitigation efforts to third-party vendors, specifically the management of cybersecurity and regulatory compliance risks.
Learn about the top VRM solutions on the market >
The Scope of Third-Party Risk Management
Because Third-Party Risk Management encompasses all forms of third-party risks, TPRM solutions vary in risk domain scope. At the extreme end of the spectrum, a TPRM platform could address all sixteen third-party risks.
Industry-specific TPRM solutions tend to narrow the focus to risk domains that are prevalent in the industry. For supply chain leaders, TPRM platforms could address up to 13 risk factors, disregarding low-relevance risks like Competition, Workplace Health and safety, and Competition
For IT Leaders, a TPRM tool could address up to 10 risk domains:
For Legal and Compliance Leaders, the risk domain scope narrows further to emphasis on ten risk categories.
What are the Features of the Best Third-Party Risk Management Solutions?
A TPRM tool addressing the broadest scope of industry use cases supports the following critical Third-Party Risk Management requirements.
- Risk Identification - The accurate detection of third-party risks across risk profiles relevant to TPRM, such as regulatory compliance, cyber framework alignment, and software vulnerabilities.
- Risk Analysis - Processes for evaluating the scope of detected third-party risks and the projected impact of specific remediation tasks.
- Risk Management - A workflow addressing the complete risk management lifecycle, from detection and assessment, through to remediation.
- Risk Monitoring - Provide a means of tracking the efficacy of remediation efforts and the emergence of new third-party risks.
- Process Automation - The application of automation technology to manual processes impeding TPRM efficiency, such as third-party risk assessments and third-party vendor questionnaires.
Essential Third-Party Risk Management Software Metrics
Each solution in this list will also be measured against the following TPRM performance metrics:
- User-Friendliness - A user-friendly TPRM platform that streamlines onboarding will help you leverage investment returns faster.
- Customer Support - Great customer support will minimize TPRM program downtime when support tickets are raised.
- Risk Scoring Accuracy - Accurate risk rating calculations ensure service provider inherent risk and residual risks are promptly addressed before they’re discovered by cybercriminals.
3 Best TPRM Solutions In 2023
The top three Third-Party Risk Management platforms improving TPRM program efficiency are listed below.
1. UpGuard
Performance Against Key TPRM Features
Below is an overview of how UpGuard performs against the seven key features of an ideal Third-Party Risk Management product.
(i). Third-Party Risk Identification
UpGuard’s third-party risk detection feature works on multiple levels. At a broad level, this covers security risks associated with third-party internet-facing assets, detected through automated third and fourth-party mapping techniques - a process involving the cybersecurity discipline, Attack Surface Management.
Watch this video for an overview of Attack Surface Management and its role in managing third-party risks.
At a deeper level, UpGuard detects third-party risks within the workflow of its risk assessment framework, beginning at the Evidence Gathering stage and continuing throughout the ongoing monitoring component of the TPRM lifecycle.
Evidence Gathering
As the initial stage of the TPRM lifecycle, evidence gathering involves combining risk information from multiple sources to form a complete picture of each third-party entity’s risk profile. UpGuard supports the evidence-gathering phase of TPRM with the following capabilities.
- Attack Surface Scanning - Even before an official partnership is finalized, users get instant access to inherent risk insights for all monitored third-party attack surfaces through automated scanning results.
- Trust and Security Pages - Monitored third parties may have publically available trust and security pages with important information about their data privacy standards, cybersecurity programs, certifications, or any regulations and frameworks being adhered to. The UpGuard platform will assign this information to all third parties when it's available.
- Completed Security Questionnaires - Any recently completed questionnaires can be appended as part of the evidence-gathering process or at a later stage as part of a more detailed risk assessment.
- Additional Evidence - Any additional cybersecurity evidence further defining a third-party entity’s baseline security posture, such as certifications or other helpful documentation.
Collectively, these features paint the most comprehensive picture of a prospective third party’s risk profile during the evidence-gathering stage of the TPRM lifecycle.
Security Questionnaires
UpGuard offers a comprehensive library of security questionnaires for identifying third-party security risks stemming from regulatory compliance issues and misalignment with popular cyber frameworks. These questionnaires map to popular industry standards - including GDPR, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, etc. They’re completely customizable, making them adaptable to unique third-party risk management processes and standards.
Learn more about UpGuard’s security questionnaires >
Since regulatory compliance is a critical risk domain within TPRM programs, UpGuard’s ability to detect these risks through its questionnaires is worth highlighting. UpGuard automatically detects compliance gaps and assigns them a severity rating based on questionnaire responses. This category of third-party risk intelligence is an invaluable aid to third-party compliance management efforts.
Cybersecurity framework compliance is also worth tracking since alignment with standards like NIST CSF could be very beneficial to TPRM performance.
Watch this video to learn how UpGuard tracks alignment with NIST CSF and ISO 27001.
Security Ratings
The other feature forming part of UpGuard’s comprehensive third-party risk identification process is its security rating tool.
UpGuard’s security ratings assess each third-party entity’s attack surface by considering risk factors commonly exploited by cybercriminals when attempting data breaches. These factors are divided across six categories of cyber risks:
- Network Security
- Phishing and Malware
- Email Security
- Brand and Reputation
- Website Security
- Questionnaire Risks
UpGuard performs a passive security configuration assessment of all public digital assets of monitored third-party entities across these risk categories. The result is a quantified value of each third-party relationship’s security posture, expressed as a numerical score ranging from 0-950.
Learn more about UpGuard’s security ratings >
UpGuard’s security ratings offer real-time tracking of third-party security postures as a part of a Third-Party Risk Management program.
UpGuard’s security ratings calculations adhere to the Principles for Fair and Accurate Security Ratings, so they can be trusted as objective indications of third-party cybersecurity performance.
By helping risk remediation personnel minimize security posture disruptions, UpGuard’s security rating technology gives its third-party risk management platform a significant competitive advantage.
All of these third-party risk identification processes feed into UpGuard’s third-party risk assessment framework.
Watch this video for an overview of UpGuard’s risk assessment process.
(ii). Third-Party Risk Analysis
UpGuard’s third-party risk analysis features aim to streamline processes between risk detection and remediation. One method this is achieved is through UpGuard’s remediation impact projections, where the impact of selected remediation tasks on an organization’s security posture is estimated before committing to a remediation plan.
Remediation projections help security teams prioritize tasks with the greatest potential benefits on TPRM performance and the organization’s overall security posture. Such foresight into the benefits of a remediation plan also keeps security teams prepared for unexpected stakeholder requests for updates on specific TPRM projects.
UpGuard also performs its third-party risk analysis through its vendor risk profiling feature, offering a single-pane-of-glass view of your organization’s entire risk exposure.
Clicking on each risk unveils a threat overview that also lists impacted domains and IP addresses for a deeper analysis of the origins of a specific risk.
With UpGuard, you can monitor the risk profile of your subsidiaries and your subsidiary’s subsidiaries.
UpGuard also offers a Vulnerability module that filters an entity’s risk profile to list all detected vulnerabilities. Selecting a vulnerability unveils a deeper level of information associated with the exposure - a very helpful aid when urgently requiring resources for addressing zero-day events.
UpGuard can also automatically detect risks based on third-party security questionnaire responses. These risks could highlight cyber framework alignment gaps or critical regulatory violation risks that must be quickly addressed to avoid costly violation fines.
UpGuard’s security questionnaire library maps to the standards of popular frameworks and regulations. Including NIST CSF, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, and many more.
Learn more about UpGuard’s security questionnaires >
Watch this video for an overview of how UpGuard tracks alignment with NIST CSF and ISO 27001.
Watch this video to learn how UpGuard simplifies third-party risk management with features streamlining vendor collaboration.
(iii). Third-Party Risk Monitoring
Conventional third-party risk monitoring methods primarily acknowledge and monitor risks detected during scheduled risk assessments. The problem with just a point-in-time approach to risk monitoring is that any third-party risks emerging between assessment schedules aren’t accounted for, which could leave an organization unknowingly exposed to potentially critical supplier risks during this period.
UpGuard solves this critical problem by combining the deep risk insights from point-in-time risk assessment with continuous attack surface monitoring to provide real-time awareness of the state of third-party attack surfaces, even between assessment schedules.
(iv). TPRM Process Automation
UpGuard’s AI Toolkit applies automation technology to streamline what’s commonly regarded as the most frustrating component of a Third-Party Risk Management program - third-party security questionnaires.
With UpGuard’s AI Enhance features, third-party entities no longer need to obsess over the wording of questionnaire responses. Now, detailed and concise responses can instantly be generated from an input as simple as a set of bullet points, helping responders focus solely on communicating value. Not only does this significantly reduce the time required to complete questionnaires, it also improves the overall quality of questionnaire responses, minimizing the need for back-and-forth clarification discussions.
To further reduce questionnaire completion times, UpGuard’s AI Autofill feature draws upon a database of previous responses to provide third parties with suggested responses for approval. This feature offers a particularly significant competitive advantage for TPRM programs as it allows questionnaires to be submitted in just hours.
With UpGuard’s AI Autofill features, security questionnaires can be submitted in hours instead of days (or weeks).
Watch this video to learn more about UpGuard’s AI Toolkit.
Key TPRM solution Performance Metrics
Below is an overview of how UpGuard measures against the three primary metrics of exemplary TPRM product performance.
(i). User Friendliness
The UpGuard platform is considered among the most intuitive and user-friendly TPRM solution options.
"Powerful and deep insights into external risk posture Simple and intuitive user interface. Great support."
- 2023 Gartner review
"I really value how simple it is to install and operate UpGuard. The program offers a complete cybersecurity answer and has an intuitive user interface."
- 2023 G2 review
Download UpGuard’s G2 report >
(ii). Customer Support
UpGuard’s high standard of customer support has been verified by independent user reviews.
“Our account manager is always responsive when we have questions, and support provides a response within 24 hours each time.”
- 2023 Gartner review (read review)
“UpGuard offers the best support after onboarding. UpGuards CSM representatives are very professional & prompt in responding to the issues raised. Tech support is also great.”
- 2023 G2 review (read review)
(iii). Third-Party Risk Scoring Accuracy
UpGuard’s security rating adheres to the Principles for Fair and Accurate Security Ratings, offering peace of mind about the objective accuracy of their measurements and the objectivity of TPRM performance against industry standards.
Independent user reviews also verify the trustworthiness of UpGuard’s third-party risk-scoring methodologies.
"UpGuard offers the most up-to-date and accurate information about third parties. Its third-party monitoring capability is handy for most medium to large enterprises."
2023 G2 review (read review)
2. SecurityScorecard
Performance Against Key TPRM Features
Below is an overview of how SecurityScorecard performs against the seven key features of an ideal Third-Party Risk Management tool.
(i). Third-Party Risk Identification
SecurityScorecard detects security risks associated with the internal and third-party attack surface for a comprehensive representation of risk exposure. Discovered risks map to popular industry standards, such as NIST 800-171, helping security teams identify alignment gaps and their specific causes.
Compliance risk discovery on the SecurityScorecard platform.
However, most of the cyber risk checks on the SecurityScorecard platform are refreshed weekly, a significant delay that could impede security rating accuracy.
UpGuard refreshes its IPv4 web space scans every 24 hours.
See how UpGuard compares with SecurityScorecard >
(ii). Third-Party Risk Analysis
SecurityScorecard supports third-party risk analysis with features like remediation impact projections and board summary reporting.
Remediation Impact Suggestions
On the SecurityScorecard platform, security teams can see the projected impact of remediation tasks on an organization’s security posture. This foreknowledge helps risk management teams understand where to prioritize their remediation efforts to maximize the impact of limited resources.
Cyber Board Summary Reports
Board summary reports can be instantly generated with a single click. These reports automatically pull relevant TPRM data from all TPRM processes, allowing stakeholders to also participate in third-party risk analysis discussions.
A snapshot of SecurityScorecard’s board summary report.
UpGuard also offers a cyber board report generation feature, with the option of exporting reports into editable PowerPoint slides - a feature that significantly reduces board meeting preparation time (and stress).
(iii). Third-Party Risk Management
SecurityScorecard manages third-party risks through Atlas, a platform for managing security questionnaires and calculating third-party risk profiles.
However, SecurityScorecard’s third-party risk management features aren’t offered within a fully integrated TPRM workflow, which could cause downstream TPRM process disruptions, limiting the scalability of your TPRM program.
UpGuard, on the other hand, streamlines the entire TPRM workflow for maximum scalability, integrating features supporting every stage of the TPRM lifecycle, including:
- New vendor onboarding
- Third-party and vendor risk assessments
- Ongoing third-party ecosystem monitoring
- Annual third-party entity review
- Third-party offboarding
UpGuard is one of the few cloud-based TPRM SaaS tools supporting the end-to-end TPRM lifecycle.
(iv). Third-Party Risk Monitoring
SecurityScorecard offers continuous third-party risk monitoring through its security rating feature - a tool for quantifying third-party security posture and tracking its performance over time.
SecurityScorecard primarily represents third-party security posture as a letter grade representing the likelihood of a third party suffering a data breach, ranging from F (most likely to be breached) to A (least likely to be breached)
SecurityScorecard rating calculations consider risk factors like DNS Health, Social Engineering risks, Application Security, Endpoint Security, and Software Patching Cadences.
(iv). TPRM Process Automation
SecurityScorecard leveraged automation technology to expedite security questionnaire completions. Applied to its entire library of questionnaire templates mapping to popular regulations and standards, SecurityScorecard’s automation technology could reduce questionnaire completion times by 83% by suggesting responses based on previously submitted questionnaires.
By implementing automation technology into its questionnaire processes, SecurityScorecard could help reduce questionnaire completion times by 83%.
Key TPRM solution Performance Metrics
Below is an overview of how SecurityScorecard measures against the three primary metrics of exemplary TPRM product performance.
(i). User Friendliness
The SecurityScorecard platform doesn’t have a reputation for being the most intuitive or user-friendly.
“The tool was not as user-friendly as its competitors. It’s for more tech-heavy users. This tool isn't ideal for collaboration with other business units such as legal/contract mgmt.”
- G2 review (read review)
(ii). Customer Support
SecurityScorecard’s customer support team is very responsive to troubleshooting queries.
"SS has a responsive support team. which is critical to me on time-sensitive projects."
- G2 review (read review)
(iii). Risk Scoring Accuracy
SecurityScorecard’s risk ratings don’t always reflect the actual state of a third-party attack surface, a problem fuelled by the platform’s delay in refreshing cyber risk checks, which usually takes about one week.
“Seems like there might be some false positives. Also, limited details on risk details.”
- Gartner review (read review)
“According to third-party feedback, unfortunately, it gives many false positives.”
- G2 review (read review)
3. Bitsight
Performance Against Key TPRM Features
Below is an overview of how BitSight performs against the seven key features of an ideal Third-Party Risk Management tool.
(i). Third-Party Risk Identification
On the BitSight platform, multiple third-party risk identification processes work together to produce a comprehensive profile of third-risk exposure.
- Compliance Tracking - BitSight automatically identifies risks associated with alignment gaps against regulations and cyber frameworks, including NIS 2 and SOC 2.
- Security Ratings - Like UpGuard and SecurityScorecard, BitSight tracks third-party cybersecurity performance with security ratings.
- External Attack Surface Management - BitSight monitors for emerging cyber threats across the external attack surface by referencing multiple risk sources, including cloud, geographies, subsidiaries, and the remote workforce.
BitSight's attack surface monitoring feature can discover instances of Shadow IT, one of the most challenging cyber risks to track and manage in the workplace.
See how UpGuard compares with BitSight >
(ii). Third-Party Risk Analysis
BitSight pulls together insight from multiple threat sources to create an informative snapshot of an organization’s complete cyber risk profile. The resulting dashboard, known as The BitSight Security Rating Snapshot, provides security teams and stakeholders with a single-pane-of-glass view of the company’s overall cybersecurity performance. Some of the metrics tracked in these dashboards include:
- Ransomware incident susceptibility
- Data breach susceptibility
- Security posture performance over time (for internal and external entities)
- Security posture benchmarking against industry standards
The BitSight Security Rating Snapshot can be transformed into a customizable executive report for stakeholders.
(iii). Third-Party Risk Management
BitSight offers features supporting the entire Third-Party Risk Management workflow, from onboarding to risk management and executive reporting for keeping stakeholders informed of TPRM efforts.
(iv). Third-Party Risk Monitoring
BitSight’s ability to track remediated third-party risks is an area of concern. According to independent user reviews, addressed cyber risks take far too long to be acknowledged by the platform, with some taking up to 60 days to be removed from reports.
"The time for us to remediate is a lot quicker, and I don't believe we should have to wait the 60 days it takes for them to remove it from the report. The response back from support on some of the issues we face is very canned and doesn’t really provide insight."
- Gartner review (read review)
"Configuration issues that are fixed stay on record for 60 days, and I have not determined that the product recognizes that the issue is resolved by changing status in any way."
- Gartner review (read review)
(v). TPRM Process Automation
BitSight offers integrations with other GRC and Vendor Risk Management solutions to streamline processes supporting TPRM efforts.
Some of BitSight’s VRM or GRC integration partners include:
- Diligent
- ServiceNow
- Venminder
- ThirdParty Trust
- ProcessUnity
- Archer
- 3rdRisk
- OneTrust (see how UpGuard compares to OneTrust)
- Prevalent (see how UpGuard compares to Prevalent)
Key TPRM solution Performance Metrics
Below is an overview of how BitSight measures against the three primary metrics of exemplary TPRM product performance.
(i). User Friendliness
The BitSight platform may require an investment of time before a confident grasp of its features is achieved. An indication of a TPRM product's intuitiveness is whether users require additional learning resources to understand how to use the platform.
The more intuitive a TPRM tool is, the faster you can leverage returns from its investment.
An ideal TPRM tool is so intuitive, users can naturally settle into a TPRM workflow without having to reference comprehensive training videos.
“Training is lacking. No videos.”
- 2023 Gartner review (read review)
(ii). Customer Support
BitSight has a good reputation for high standards of customer support.
"Customer service was excellent, everything was explained well, all my questions were answered soundly."
- G2 review (read review)
(iii). Risk Scoring Accuracy
BitSight’s third-party risk scoring accuracy is greatly impacted by the excessive amount of time required to acknowledge remediated cyber risks on the platform. Such delays present security teams with an inaccurate depiction of the state of a company’s third-party attack surface, which could significantly disrupt the efficiency of a TPRM program.
