With the majority of data breaches now caused by compromised third-party vendors, cybersecurity programs are quickly evolving towards a greater emphasis on Vendor Risk Management.
For advice on choosing the best VRM solution for your specific data breach mitigation requirements, read on.
The Risks of Not Having a Vendor Risk Management Solution
According to the 2023 Cost of a Data Breach report by IBM and the Ponemon Institute, data breach damage costs have peaked (again) at USD 4.45 million. Data breaches involving compromised third-party vendors increased this amount by about $216,441.
Vendor Risk Management is a cybersecurity program ensuring vendor security risks do not exceed your risk appetite.
A Vendor Risk Management platform helps security teams achieve confident control over their third-party attack surface, ensuring vendor risks are detected and remediated before cybercriminals exploit them. The impact of a VRM tool goes beyond reduced data breach damage costs. A resilient Vendor Risk Management program could significantly reduce your risk of a data breach.
According to the Verizon 2022 Data Breach Investigations Report, 62% of all data breaches happen via third-party vendors.
To provide the most accurate measure of performance, this list compares VRM solutions against a minimal set of features required to contend with today's third-party cyber threat landscape.
What are the Features of the Best Vendor Risk Management Solutions?
Your choice of Vendor Risk Management software should offer the following set of features as a minimum:
- Attack Surface Monitoring - Real-time risk monitoring for vendor vulnerabilities that could facilitate security incidents. Attack Surface Monitoring also feeds into a broader cybersecurity discipline known as Attack Surface Management, which helps you maintain a minimal digital footprint to further decrease data breach risks.
- Vendor Risk Assessment Management - The risk assessment lifecycle comprises multiple stages, from due diligence to evidence gathering, risk monitoring, etc. Ideally, all stages of this lifecycle should be addressed in the one cloud-based VRM platform.
- Security Questionnaire Automation - If not streamlined to optimal efficiency and scalability, clunky security questionnaire processes cause disruptions across all dependent stages of the VRM lifecycle, especially risk assessments.
- Risk Remediation Workflows - A complete risk remediation workflow must be included in a VRM platform so that discovered risks can be instantly addressed.
- Regulatory Compliance Tracking - Regulatory violations bring significant penalties. Since the security postures of service providers in the supply chain directly impact compliance efforts, a VRM platform should include vendor risk and compliance tracking features.
- Vendor Security Posture Tracking - Security posture quantification tools, like security ratings, allow each vendor’s degree of data breach susceptibility to be tracked in real time. This feature is an invaluable aid when managing a substantial vendor attack surface.
- Cybersecurity Reporting Workflows - With stakeholders expecting greater visibility into your cybersecurity program’s performance, A VRM platform should include a feature for instantly generating reports pulling relevant data about your VRM efforts.
Essential Vendor Risk Management Software Metrics
Each solution in this list will also be measured against the following performance metrics:
- User-Friendliness - A user-friendly VRM platform streamlines onboarding, allowing your organization to benefit from the platform’s functionality as quickly as possible
- Customer support - An ever-present customer support team will give you the peace of mind of knowing any administrative and troubleshooting queries will be addressed quickly, allowing you to focus entirely on drawing value from the VRM tool.
- Risk Scoring Accuracy - The efficiency of a VRM program is directly tied to the accuracy of its risk-scoring mechanisms. Risk scores inflating vendor risk profiles with superfluous threats cause unnecessary strain on remediation resources. Alternatively, risk-scoring mechanisms missing important threats leave an organization unknowingly exposed to critical data breach risks.
3 Best Cyber VRM Tools In 2023
The top three vendor risk management tools options for improving VRM program efficiency are listed below.
1. UpGuard
Performance Against Key VRM Features
Below is an overview of how UpGuard performs against the seven key features of an ideal Vendor Risk Management product.
(i). Attack Surface Monitoring
The UpGuard platform includes attack surface monitoring features addressing internal and complete third-party attack surfaces. Integrating with UpGuard’s Attack Surface Management module, this continuous monitoring feature discovers emerging supplier risks and vulnerabilities across vendor relationships, helping security teams achieve confident control of their vendor attack surface.
For an overview of UpGuard’s attack surface monitoring capabilities in the context of attack surface management, watch this video:
(ii). Vendor Risk Assessment Management
UpGuard’s VRM SaaS tool streamlines the end-to-end vendor risk assessment process, removing all dependence on frustrating spreadsheets. The vendor risk assessment lifecycle stages addressed inside the UpGuard platform include:
- Evidence Gathering - Gathering evidence to form a complete picture of inherent risks before vendor onboarding or initial risk exposure for existing vendors. This data can either be gathered from trust and security pages, certifications, or questionnaire responses.
- Risk Management - The process of deciding which risks to accept, waive, and prioritize in remediation efforts. All risks are ranked by level of criticality following risk identification.
Watch this video for an overview of UpGuard’’s risk assessment workflow.
Learn more about UpGuard’s risk assessment features >
(iii). Security Questionnaire Automation
To address the most common cause of VRM process inefficiency - delayed questionnaire submissions, UpGuard has introduced automation technology to revolutionize the vendor questionnaire process.
- AI Autofill - This feature auto-populates suggested questionnaire responses based on a database of a vendor’s previously submitted questionnaires.
- AI Enhance - This feature allows vendors to produce clear and concise questionnaire responses from a set of bullet points.
UpGuard’s vendor questionnaire automation features significantly reduce time spent completing questionnaires, which means you receive responses in hours, instead of days (or weeks).
Watch this video for an overview of these features in UpGuard’s AI Toolkit.
UpGuard’s AI-powered features are available across all of its pre-built vendor questionnaire templates, which map to popular frameworks and standards, including HIPAA, PCI DSS, and ISO 27001.
Learn more about UpGuard’s questionnaires >
(iv). Risk Remediation Workflows
UpGuard includes an in-built risk remediation workflow for instantly addressing risks identified in risk assessments and questionnaires. To help security teams prioritize remediation tasks that will have the greatest positive impacts on an organization's security posture, UpGuard projects the likely security posture improvements for selected remediation tasks.
Watch this video for an overview of UpGuard’s risk remediation workflow.
(v). Regulatory Compliance Tracking
UpGuard’s VRM solution tracks each vendor’s degree of alignment against popular regulations based on security questionnaire responses.
UpGuard’s security questionnaires map to the standards of regulations like HIPAA, PCI DSS, and NIST 800-53, identifying compliance risks based on questionnaire responses. This feature offers a competitive advantage to VRM and Third-Party Risk Management programs, simplifying compliance management, even during the most critical phases of a vendor relationship.- onboarding and offboarding.
Watch this video for an overview of how UpGuard’s compliance tracking feature can also track alignment with cybersecurity framework standards.
To expedite remediation processes, UpGuard offers vendor collaboration features, streamlining communication about specific security risk fixes.
Watch this video to learn how UpGuard streamlines vendor collaborations to achieve optimum remediation efficiently.
(vi). Vendor Security Posture Tracking
UpGuard’s security rating feature quantifies vendor security postures by evaluating over 70 critical attack vectors across six risk categories.
- Network Security
- Phishing and Malware
- Email Security
- Brand and Reputation
- Website Security
- Questionnaire Risks
This risk category list represents the most concise supply chain security risk profile leading to third-party breaches. While considering more attack vector categories might seem like it would produce more accurate security posture calculations, doing so increases the likelihood of including vanity factors not truly indicative of actual security risks - which will only frustrate your security teams.
Final quantified security postures are represented as a numerical value ranging from 0-950.
UpGuard’s vendor risk ratings mechanism adheres to the Principles for Fair and Accurate Security Ratings to produce objective security posture measurements that can be independently verified.
Learn more about UpGuard’s security ratings >
(vii). Cybersecurity Reporting Workflows
UpGuard’s Vendor Risk Management platform offers a library of customizable cybersecurity reporting templates showcasing vendor risk mitigation efforts and the performance of other risk management processes to keep stakeholders informed of your VRM performance.
To streamline the complete reporting workflow, UpGuard allows board reports to be exported into editable PowerPoint slides, relieving the burden of preparing for VRM and TPRM board presentations.
Learn more about UpGuard’s reporting and dashboard features >
Performance Metrics
Below is an overview of how UpGuard performs against three primary performance metrics collectively representing the usability and reliability of a VRM tool.
(i). User Friendliness
UpGuard’s intuitive and user-friendly design is commonly highlighted in customer reviews on Gartner and G2.
"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 >
To get a sense of how quickly the onboarding process is with UpGuard, 7 Chord, an independent provider of predictive pricing and analytics to fixed-income traders, was able to onboard over 20 of its vendors and start monitoring them immediately in less than 30 minutes.
"We found UpGuard’s design very clean and very intuitive – more intuitive than the UI of its competitors, making it an easy decision to go with UpGuard."
- 7 Chord
(ii). Customer Support
UpGuard strives to offer the best levels of customer support in the industry. Independent reviews verify that UpGuard is meeting this objective.
“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). Risk Scoring Accuracy
UpGuard’s risk-scoring mechanisms aim to reflect the most objectively accurate profile of a vendor’s security posture. UpGuard’s vendor risk profile offers a detailed breakdown of all risks influencing security posture measurements represented as security ratings.
The detail of discovered risks and the ability to instantly request remediations for each risk offer opportunities to independently confirm the legitimacy of each security threat and the accuracy of its criticality ratings.
UpGuard’s risk scoring accuracy has been highlighted in independent user reviews.
"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 VRM Features
Below is an overview of how SecurityScorecard performs against the seven key features of an ideal Vendor Risk Management product.
(i). Attack Surface Monitoring
SecurityScorecard offers an attack surface monitoring feature that can identify internal and third-party security risks by scanning public-facing attack vectors.
Some of the indicators of risk considered by SecuityScorecard’s attack surface scanning tool include:
- Open ports
- DNS
- HSTS
- SSL
Most of SecurityScorecard’s risk checks are refreshed at a weekly rate. Compared with the UpGuard platform, which completes its non-intrusive scans of IPv4 web space in just 24 hours, this is a significant delay that could lead to inaccurate security rating calculations.
See how UpGuard compares with SecurityScorecard >
(ii). Vendor Risk Assessment Management
SecurityScorecard offers a Vendor Risk Assessment workflow through Atlas - a vendor questionnaire and evidence exchange platform for establishing vendor risk profiles. However, because vendor risk monitoring and questionnaire automation modules are offered as separate licenses, data sharing between vendor risk assessment phases isn't streamlined, which could impact the quality of holistic vendor risk views and calculations.
This isn't a minor issue. Disjointed vendor risk data sharing between risk assessment modules makes it difficult for users to understand what a vendor's total actual risk is, which undermines the ultimate purpose of a VRM tool - to improve the efficiency of your VRM program.
UpGuard streamlines the entire vendor risk assessment workflow with fully integrated features, ensuring holistic vendor risk visibility and accuracy is always maintained.
(iii). Security Questionnaire Automation
SecurityScorecard applies automation technology to its vendor questionnaire processes to expedite response times. One way this is achieved is by suggesting responses based on previously submitted questionnaires.
SecurityScorecard’s application of automation technology could reduce vendor questionnaire completion times by 83%.
SecurityScorecard offers a vendor questionnaire management module with a library of questionnaire mapping to popular regulations and standards.
(v). Regulatory Compliance Tracking
SecurityScorecard includes a vendor collaboration feature, making it easier for security teams and impacted vendors to work together to address compliance risks. By combining security rating data with questionnaire data, SSC can discover emerging compliance risks even between official assessment schedules.
(iv). Risk Remediation Workflows
SecurityScorecard offers managed remediation services following a data breach, an offering made possible by its acquisition of LIFARS, a global leader in digital forensics, incident response, ransomware mitigation, and cyber resiliency services.
SSC also gives users the option of managing risk remediations, either by submitting resolution requests or by providing details of compensating controls that are in place.
Like UpGuard, SecurityScorecard also projects the impact of selected remediation tasks on a company’s security posture.
However, SecurityScorecard doesn’t offer its risk remediation feature within a fully integrated Vendor Risk Management workflow, which could impede the scalability of your VRM program.
UpGuard, on the other hand, streamlines the entire Cyber Vendor Risk Management lifecycle in a single platform, integrating multiple VRM processes, including:
- Initial onboarding
- Risk assessments and security approval for new vendors
- Ongoing risk monitoring & remediation
- Annual vendor risk and review
UpGuard is one of the few VRM product options addressing the complete end-to-end Vendor Risk Management lifecycle.
(vi). Vendor Security Posture Tracking
SecurityScorecard tracks vendor security postures with a security rating feature evaluating cyber risks across ten risk factors:
- Network Security
- DNS Health
- Patching Cadence
- Endpoint Security
- IP Reputation
- Application Security
- Cubit Score
- Hacker Chatter
- Information Leak
- Social Engineering
Final quantified security postures are represented as a letter grade ranging from A to F.
(vii). Cybersecurity Reporting Workflows
SecurityScorecard includes a cyber report generation feature that instantly pulls relevant vendor risk data and produces in-depth board reports. SSC’s reports are customizable, showcasing risk trends in your vendor ecosystem and benchmark your VRM performance against industry averages.
Performance Metrics
Below is an overview of how SecurityScorecard performs against three primary performance metrics collectively representing the usability and reliability of a VRM tool.
(i). User Friendliness
While SecurityScorecard’s dashboard is informative, some users find it a little too overwhelming and unintuitive. Poor user-friendliness could slow implementation timelines and delay investment returns.
“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
According to independent reviews, SecurityScorecard’s support team has demonstrated prompt responsiveness to user issues.
"SS has a responsive support team. which is critical to me on time-sensitive projects."
- G2 review (read review)
(iii). Risk Scoring Accuracy
How Accurate are SecurityScorecard’s Risk Ratings?
According to reviews on Gartner and G2, SecurityScorecard has been found to produce false positives, which could impact the accuracy of its security rating calculations and, therefore, the overall efficiency of your Vendor Risk Management program.
“According to third-party feedback, unfortunately, it gives many false positives.”
- G2 review (read review)
“Seems like there might be some false positives. Also, limited details on risk details.”
- Gartner review (read review)
“Not finding the correct security issues, More spamming, need to get consent before adding the other domain even though it is light scan.”
- Gartner review (read review)
3. Bitsight
Performance Against Key VRM Features
Below is an overview of how BitSight performs against the seven key features of an ideal Vendor Risk Management product.
(i). Attack Surface Monitoring
Bitsight pulls attack surface insights from multiple sources (cloud, geographies, subsidiaries, and your remote workforce) into a single dashboard.
Bitsight monitors both the internal and external attack surfaces to help security teams:
- Visualize critical vendor risks
- Discover shadow IT
- Reduce corporate digital footprints to support enterprise risk management
- Monitor cyber risks in cloud infrastructures
See how UpGuard compares with Bitsight >
(ii). Vendor Risk Assessment Management
Bitsight has developed a vendor risk assessment module that can conform to the unique vendor risk profile. This capability offers a more targeted approach to vendor risk assessments than the broad, one-size-fits-all approach that characterizes ineffective vendor risk assessment platforms.
(iii). Security Questionnaire Automation
Bitsight keeps a comprehensive record of historic vendor risk assessment data for a detailed representation of vendor risk performance trends. Following its partnership with Third Party Trust, Bitsight now offers vendor security questionnaire review workflow as part of a broader third-party risk management solution. These questionnaires map popular industry standards, such as NIST, ISO, CIS Controls, and Shared Assessments.
(iv). Risk Remediation Workflows
Bitsight claims to support the complete Vendor Risk Management lifecycle, which is inclusive of a risk remediation workflow. Users can track whether remediation requests have been opened, resolved, accepted, or are in progress.
Bitsight users have noticed that remediated security risks take far too long to be removed from cyber risk reports, which could result in an inaccurate depiction of your overall. security posture.
"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). Regulatory Compliance Tracking
Bitsight doesn’t have a single published source listing all of the regulations it supports compliance with. Some blog posts allude to regulation and cyber frameworks that Bitsight could support, such as NIS 2 and SOC 2, but this messaging isn’t very clear.
When investing in a VRM solution, it’s important to have complete confidence in its ability to address regulatory compliance risks - a critical risk factor influencing your security posture.
According to Gartner, Regulatory compliance tracking is a critical capability of IT Vendor Risk Management solutions. As such, to encourage trust in its effectiveness, a VRM solution should clearly highlight its regulatory compliance capabilities.
(vi). Vendor Security Posture Tracking
Bitsight’s external attack surface monitoring features aim to represent your vendor’s attack surface as an attacker would see it - by highlighting the vendor’s most vulnerable to data breach attempts.
Bitsight quantifies security postures as a numerical value rating from 0-820. To help you determine whether your vendor risk exposure is on an upward or downward trend, Bitsight keeps 12 months of security rating data for each vendor.
(vii). Cybersecurity Reporting Workflows
Bitsight’s Executive Reporting feature pulls relevant vendor risk metrics into a cybersecurity report for board meetings. A particularly helpful feature in Bitsights’s reporting workflow is the inclusion of Cyber Risk Quantification - an approximation of the financial impact of selected cyber threat scenarios. CRQ is a beneficial tool for making intelligence cybersecurity investment decisions.
Performance Metrics
Below is an overview of how Bitsight performs against three primary performance metrics collectively representing the usability and reliability of a VRM tool.
(i). User Friendliness
The Bitsight platform isn’t intuitive, so implementation may take longer than expected. A red flag for a potentially steep learning curve in a VRM solution is the expectation of training videos. Ideally, the UX of a VRM tool should be so intuitive users naturally begin understanding how to navigate it without the support of training videos.
“Training is lacking. No videos.”
- 2023 Gartner review (read review)
(ii). Customer Support
Bitsight users have reported excellent support from the customer support team.
"Customer service was excellent, everything was explained well, all my questions were answered soundly."
- G2 review (read review)
(iii). Risk Scoring Accuracy
How Accurate are Bitsight’s Risk Ratings?
Bitsight’s excessive delays in reflecting the impact of remediated security risks could be a significant frustration for security teams basing their VRM decisions on data not reflective of the actual vendor attack surface.
UpGuard, on the other hand, scans and refreshes risks daily for each vendor to ensure security teams always operate from the most up-to-date and accurate vendor risk data.
