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BitSight vs RiskRecon: 2023 Comparison

Bitsight vs RiskRecon

See how UpGuard helps you automate your third-party risk assessment workflows and get instant notifications about your vendors’ security.
UpGuard is trusted by hundreds of companies worldwide
Trusted by hundreds of companies worldwide

Bitsight vs RiskRecon

See how they compare side-by-side.
Capabilities
5 stars
2,000,000+ organizations scanned daily. Non-intrusive scans of IPv4 web space completed in just 24 hours.
Star rating
170,000 supported organizations.
Star rating
Offers cybersecurity ratings and deep reporting capabilities to help businesses surface and manage cyber risks
Usability and the learning curve
5 stars
High-level summation of risk with the ability to drill down into precise technical details.
Star rating
Provides views of identified vendor risks enabling detailed reporting of vendors.
Star rating
Provides dashboard visibility for risk prioritization based on configured policy. Cloud based platform offers minimal need for installation.
Community support
5 stars
UpGuard Summit brings together a community of security leaders from leading companies, explores the future of security and helps businesses stay secure. The UpGuard cybersecurity and risk management blog is updated four times a week and our breach research blog has uncovered and secured some of the largest data breaches.
Star rating
Bitsight maintains regular blog posts and webinars covering security incidents, feature updates, and industry developments.
Star rating
Offers a customer user academy, consistently updated company blog, coverage of critical global security events, and a regular webinar schedule for sharing best practices.
Release rate
4 stars
UpGuard has adopted DevOps principles internally to develop, test, and release software continuously, ensuring fast, consistent, and safe releases.
Star rating
Bitsight does not publicly disclose product release cycle periods but does provide overviews of significant platform updates via their corporate blog.
Star rating
RiskRecon does not appear to publicly share regular release rates, roadmaps, or documentation for solution updates.
Pricing and support
5 stars
UpGuard has a transparent pricing model which you can view here. UpGuard pricing starts at $5,999/year and scales with your company.
Star rating
Public pricing information is not available. Pricing is reported to start at $20,000 plus $2,000-$2,500 per vendor per year.
Star rating
Public pricing information is not available. Pricing is reported to start at $10,000 and increases based on the number of vendors monitored.
API and extensibility
4 stars
UpGuard offers a standard API to pull data into other enterprise applications.
Star rating
Bitsight offers the ability for customers to extend security ratings through a Developer API.
Star rating
Offers a standard API to create extensibility for RiskRecon cybersecurity ratings.
Third-party integrations
4 stars
Connect UpGuard with over 4,000+ apps using our Zapier integration.
Star rating
Offers integrations with RSA Archer GRC, CyberGRX, OneTrust Vendorpedia, ProcessUnity, MetricStream, and more.
Star rating
Offers integrations with GRC platforms, such as RSA Archer, Sigma Ratings, Whistic, and more.
Predictive capabilities
5 stars
As UpGuard checks for misconfigurations across your Internet footprint, many important breach vectors are covered, including phishing, ransomware susceptibility (like WannaCry), man-in-the-middle attacks, DNSSEC, vulnerabilities, email spoofing, domain hijacking, and DNS issues. Data leaks are automatically surfaced by the platform for your team to assess and close before they become breaches.
Star rating
The IP reputation methodology helps catch active malware installations, but that’s only one possible way a data breach can occur.
Star rating
Allows users to implement a baseline configuration within the RiskRecon portal to match risk structures being used to manage enterprise and third-party risk. Risks monitored provide visibility into email security, application security, network filtering, and more.
Customers
5 stars
The New York Stock Exchange (ICE), Morningstar, TDK, PagerDuty, Hopin, and IAG. Read our customer stories.
Star rating
Major customers include Optus / Singtel, The University of North Florida, Snam, and PROSA.
Star rating
Major customers include Informatica, Tufts Health Plan, University of San Francisco, and Sentara.
G2 rating
Accurate as of January 2024
5 stars
4.5, based on 164 reviews. Named a G2 Market Leader for Third Party & Supplier Risk Management Software.
Star rating
4.6, based on 35 reviews.
Star rating
4.5, based on 2 reviews.
Security rating
X
950
/ 950
X
950
/ 950
X
950
/ 950

Bitsight vs UpGuard

See how they compare side-by-side.
Capabilities
5 stars
2,000,000+ organizations scanned daily. Non-intrusive scans of IPv4 web space completed in just 24 hours.
Star rating
170,000 supported organizations.
Usability and the learning curve
5 stars
Highly intuitive workflow and shallow learning curve for faster VRM program implementation.
Star rating
Provides views of identified vendor risks enabling detailed reporting of vendors.
Community support
5 stars
UpGuard Summit brings together a community of security leaders from leading companies, explores the future of security and helps businesses stay secure. The UpGuard cybersecurity and risk management blog is updated four times a week and our breach research blog has uncovered and secured some of the largest data breaches.
Star rating
Bitsight maintains regular blog posts and webinars covering security incidents, feature updates, and industry developments.
Release rate
4 stars
UpGuard has adopted DevOps principles internally to develop, test, and release software continuously, ensuring fast, consistent, and safe releases.
Star rating
Bitsight does not publicly disclose product release cycle periods but does provide overviews of significant platform updates via their corporate blog.
Pricing and support
5 stars
UpGuard has a transparent pricing model which you can view here. UpGuard pricing starts at $5,999/year and scales with your company.
Star rating
Public pricing information is not available. Pricing is reported to start at $20,000 plus $2,000-$2,500 per vendor per year.
API and extensibility
4 stars
UpGuard offers a standard API to pull data into other enterprise applications.
Star rating
Bitsight offers the ability for customers to extend security ratings through a Developer API.
Third-party integrations
4 stars
Connect UpGuard with over 4,000+ apps using our Zapier integration.
Star rating
Offers integrations with RSA Archer GRC, CyberGRX, OneTrust Vendorpedia, ProcessUnity, MetricStream, and more.
Predictive capabilities
5 stars
As UpGuard checks for misconfigurations across your Internet footprint, many important breach vectors are covered, including phishing, ransomware susceptibility (like WannaCry), man-in-the-middle attacks, DNSSEC, vulnerabilities, email spoofing, domain hijacking, and DNS issues. Data leaks are automatically surfaced by the platform for your team to assess and close before they become breaches.
Star rating
The IP reputation methodology helps catch active malware installations, but that’s only one possible way a data breach can occur.
Customers
5 stars
The New York Stock Exchange (ICE), Morningstar, TDK, PagerDuty, Hopin, and IAG. Read our customer stories.
Star rating
Major customers include Optus / Singtel, The University of North Florida, Snam, and PROSA.
G2 rating
Accurate as of January 2024
5 stars
4.5, based on 164 reviews. Named a G2 Market Leader for Third Party & Supplier Risk Management Software.
Star rating
4.6, based on 35 reviews.
Security rating
X
950
/ 950
X
950
/ 950

Bitsight vs UpGuard

Bitsight vs RiskRecon

See how they compare side-by-side.
Capabilities
5 stars
2,000,000+ organizations scanned daily. Non-intrusive scans of IPv4 web space completed in just 24 hours.
Usability and the learning curve
5 stars
High-level summation of risk with the ability to drill down into precise technical details.
Community support
5 stars
UpGuard Summit brings together a community of security leaders from leading companies, explores the future of security and helps businesses stay secure. The UpGuard cybersecurity and risk management blog is updated four times a week and our breach research blog has uncovered and secured some of the largest data breaches.
Release rate
4 stars
UpGuard has adopted DevOps principles internally to develop, test, and release software continuously, ensuring fast, consistent, and safe releases.
Pricing and support
5 stars
UpGuard has a transparent pricing model which you can view here. UpGuard pricing starts at $5,999/year and scales with your company.
API and extensibility
4 stars
UpGuard offers a standard API to pull data into other enterprise applications.
Third-party integrations
4 stars
Connect UpGuard with over 4,000+ apps using our Zapier integration.
Predictive capabilities
5 stars
As UpGuard checks for misconfigurations across your Internet footprint, many important breach vectors are covered, including phishing, ransomware susceptibility (like WannaCry), man-in-the-middle attacks, DNSSEC, vulnerabilities, email spoofing, domain hijacking, and DNS issues. Data leaks are automatically surfaced by the platform for your team to assess and close before they become breaches.
Customers
5 stars
The New York Stock Exchange (ICE), Morningstar, TDK, PagerDuty, Hopin, and IAG. Read our customer stories.
G2 rating
Accurate as of January 2024
5 stars
4.5, based on 164 reviews. Named a G2 Market Leader for Third Party & Supplier Risk Management Software.
Capabilities
Star rating
170,000 supported organizations.
Usability and the learning curve
Star rating
Provides views of identified vendor risks enabling detailed reporting of vendors.
Community support
Star rating
Bitsight maintains regular blog posts and webinars covering security incidents, feature updates, and industry developments.
Release rate
Star rating
Bitsight does not publicly disclose product release cycle periods but does provide overviews of significant platform updates via their corporate blog.
Pricing and support
Star rating
Public pricing information is not available. Pricing is reported to start at $20,000 plus $2,000-$2,500 per vendor per year.
API and extensibility
Star rating
Bitsight offers the ability for customers to extend security ratings through a Developer API.
Third-party integrations
Star rating
Offers integrations with RSA Archer GRC, CyberGRX, OneTrust Vendorpedia, ProcessUnity, MetricStream, and more.
Predictive capabilities
Star rating
The IP reputation methodology helps catch active malware installations, but that’s only one possible way a data breach can occur.
Customers
Star rating
Major customers include Optus / Singtel, The University of North Florida, Snam, and PROSA.
G2 rating
Accurate as of January 2024
Star rating
4.6, based on 35 reviews.
Capabilities
Star rating
Offers cybersecurity ratings and deep reporting capabilities to help businesses surface and manage cyber risks
Usability and the learning curve
Star rating
Provides dashboard visibility for risk prioritization based on configured policy. Cloud based platform offers minimal need for installation.
Community support
Star rating
Offers a customer user academy, consistently updated company blog, coverage of critical global security events, and a regular webinar schedule for sharing best practices.
Release rate
Star rating
RiskRecon does not appear to publicly share regular release rates, roadmaps, or documentation for solution updates.
Pricing and support
Star rating
Public pricing information is not available. Pricing is reported to start at $10,000 and increases based on the number of vendors monitored.
API and extensibility
Star rating
Offers a standard API to create extensibility for RiskRecon cybersecurity ratings.
Third-party integrations
Star rating
Offers integrations with GRC platforms, such as RSA Archer, Sigma Ratings, Whistic, and more.
Predictive capabilities
Star rating
Allows users to implement a baseline configuration within the RiskRecon portal to match risk structures being used to manage enterprise and third-party risk. Risks monitored provide visibility into email security, application security, network filtering, and more.
Customers
Star rating
Major customers include Informatica, Tufts Health Plan, University of San Francisco, and Sentara.
G2 rating
Accurate as of January 2024
Star rating
4.5, based on 2 reviews.

Bitsight vs RiskRecon product overview

Bitsight vs UpGuard product overview

Learn more about the products and how they compare.

Whether you're a CISO, Vice President or individual contributor, you understand that information technology has changed how we do business, for better and for worse.

Technology has brought speed, scale, and better customer experience to all aspects of commerce and communication, but it has also increased cybersecurity risk, particularly data breaches, cyber attacks, and other cyber threats.

The consequences of poor risk management, particularly third-party risk management and vendor risk management, are increasing in cost, reputation, and regulatory impact. According to research done by the Ponemon Institute, the average cost of a data breach globally has grown by 12 percent in the last five years to $3.92 million.

This number balloons to $8.19 million in the United States. It's safe to say it pays to prevent data breaches and data leaks.

Beyond financial costs, the reputational and regulatory impact is growing due to increasingly stringent general data protection and breach notification laws around the world. Examples include GDPR, PIPEDA, FIPA, the SHIELD Act, CCPA, and LGPD.

Many of these new regulations are extraterritorial, meaning they apply to any organization who processes the personally identifiable information (PII) or other sensitive data of any individual protected by the law, regardless of whether your organization operates in their jurisdiction.

What this all means is there is no excuse for mismanagement of your first-party and third-party cyber risk. Increasingly, you will be expected to assess the security performance of vendors who are deeper in your supply chain, i.e. fourth-party risk.  

This requires the translation of the technical details security postures, cybersecurity risk assessments, vendor questionnaires, and information security policies into business terms.

An increasingly popular way to do this is through security ratings (or cybersecurity ratings) providers who offer an instantaneous assessment of cyber risk, much like a credit score does for assessing credit risk.

The issue is that the methodologies employed by these threat intelligence tools vary greatly, as do their results.

For example, BitSight, SecurityScorecard, and RiskRecon largely focus on security assessments of business partners, third-party vendors, and service providers. Read our guide on SecurityScorecard vs BitSight to learn how they stack up.

In contrast, UpGuard has a complete continuous monitoring risk management solution that can handle internal risk with our behind-the-firewall Core product, vendor risk management with our Vendor Risk product, and data leak detection and cybersecurity performance monitoring with our UpGuard BreachSight product.

In this comparison, we'll help you understand what to look for in a solution and see how BitSight, RiskRecon, and UpGuard stack up for managing Internet-facing first and third-party risk.  

But before we dive into the specifics, it's important to understand what security risk ratings are.

BitSight Technologies Overview

BitSight Technologies is a Cambridge, MA-based company that aims to quantify the external cybersecurity posture of organizations using publicly accessible data.

BitSight’s security ratings are used by security and cybersecurity riskprofessionals to conduct due diligence research for vendor risk management programs, private equity, M&A activities, and more.  

Additionally, these security ratings are used for attack surface analytics, industry benchmarking, and the assessment of fourth-party risk.

Bitsight's UI
BitSight's UI. Source: bitsight.com

RiskRecon Overview

RiskRecon is headquartered in Salt Lake City, UT with a presence in Boston, MA and representatives around the world. RiskRecon makes it easy to gain deep, risk contextualized insight into the cybersecurity risk performance of all third-parties by continuously monitoring across 11 security domains and 41 security criteria.

Like BitSight, it can be used for third-party risk management, enterprise risk management, and mergers & acquisitions.

Riskrecon UI
Riskrecon UI. Source: riskrecon.com

UpGuard Overview

UpGuard is a third-party risk and attack surface management platform that helps global organizations prevent data breaches, monitor third-party vendors, and improve their security posture. 

UpGuard’s platform uses proprietary security ratings, data leak detection capabilities, and remediation workflows to proactively identify security exposures.

UpGuard’s all-in-one third-party risk and attack surface management software intelligently groups risks into six categories: website risks, email security, network security, phishing & malware, reputation risk, and brand protection. 

Usability & Learning Curve

Minimizing the amount of time and effort in learning to use a new solution is a critical aspect of delivering on any value proposition.

BitSight, Panorays, and UpGuard offer their services via SaaS and are accessible from web-based platforms that can help users monitor and manage vendor risks.

BitSight: Provides views of identified vendor risks enabling detailed reporting of vendors.

RiskRecon: Provides risk prioritization based on your configured policy.

UpGuard: High-level summation of risk with the ability to drill down into precise technical details. Each risk is prioritized based on extensive research conducted by the in-house security team, and where possible remediation and protection suggestions are provided.

Capabilities

All three solutions provide security ratings, aggregated summaries of risk for immediate understanding and comparison, and their own standardize scoring methodology.

The way these security ratings are derived differ among the solutions to some degree. IP reputation relies on attributing malware traffic to an organization based on IP address, whereas scanning for misconfigurations means looking at an organization's actual Internet footprint and determining how it compares to best practices and what vulnerabilities lead to data breaches.

BitSight: Primarily IP reputation, read our guide on why IP attribution isn't a complete solution here.

RiskRecon: Assesses an organization against 11 security domains and 41 security criteria.

UpGuard: Runs hundreds of individual checks including email security and email spoofing risks (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC), website security (SSL, HSTS, header exposure), phishing and malware risk, explicit checks for 200 services across thousands of ports (mail, app, user auth, file sharing, voice, administration, database, unidentified, and open ports), domain hijacking risk (DNSSEC and domain registry issues), reputational risks (CEO rating and employee rating), credential management (exposure to known data breaches and data leaks detected by our data leak detection engine) and results of intelligent security questionnaires.

Predictive capabilities

The main reason organizations invest in security tools is to prevent incidents from happening in the first place.

A solution's ability to prevent data breaches and other cyber attacks before they happen should be front of mind when choosing a security platform.

BitSight, Panorays, and UpGuard all identify risks using passive scans on a third party’s public-facing attack surfaces.

BitSight: In addition to monitoring breach vectors indicating susceptibility to phishing, man-in-the-middle attacks, and email spoofing, BitSight aims to incorporate IP reputation methodology to catch active malware installations.

However, threat and risk intelligence enabling greater visibility into supply chain data leakages, compromised corporate identities, and brand fraud is not currently supported.

RiskRecon: RiskRecon focuses on third-party assessment across 11 security domains and 41 security criteria.

UpGuard: Reviews many important breach vectors to assess the supply chain attack surface, including phishing, ransomware susceptibility, man-in-the-middle attacks, DNSSEC, vulnerabilities, email spoofing, domain hijacking, and DNS issues.

Provides threat and risk intelligence, enabling greater visibility into supply chain data leakages, compromised corporate identities, and brand fraud.

Community Support

Keeping informed on product updates and the latest cyber security developments is paramount, with new vulnerabilities and cyber threats emerging daily.

Customers need up-to-date resources and relevant insights to stay ahead of the curve and protect their organizations from emerging cyber risks.

The frequency of publication and presence of community engagement is a key indicator of a company’s mission, focus, and investment in its users.

BitSight, RiskRecon, and UpGuard offer comprehensive online resources to educate and inform customers.

BitSight: Provides views of identified vendor risks enabling detailed reporting of vendors.

RiskRecon: Company and product blog.

UpGuard: UpGuard Summit brings together a community of security leaders from leading companies, explores the future of security, and helps businesses stay secure.

The UpGuard cybersecurity and risk management blog is updated four times a week and the breach research blog has uncovered and secured some of the largest data breaches.

UpGuard’s free weekly Breach Newsletter informs 20,000+ subscribers of the latest global data breaches.

Release rate

Technology is always changing. New vulnerabilities are added to CVE on a daily basis, and attackers are constantly finding new zero-day exploits.

The speed at which a security platform can incorporate changes determines how well it can respond to new threats and customer requests.

Additionally, they should continue to update, adjust, and improve their threat detection methodology to reflect changes to the threat landscape.

BitSight: BitSight does not publicly disclose product release cycle periods but does provide overviews of significant platform updates via their corporate blog.

RiskRecon: RiskRecon does not appear to publicly share regular release rates, roadmaps, or documentation for solution updates.

UpGuard: UpGuard has adopted DevOps principles internally to develop, test, and release software continuously, ensuring fast, consistent, and safe releases. UpGuard has a regular release rate every two weeks, with all features, changes, and improvements listed under UpGuard Release Notes.

Pricing & Support

Cyber risk platforms can be expensive and the common use of opaque pricing policies often takes power away from the purchaser. With most services offering tiered licensing options and add-ons, finding a solution that fits your needs and budget can prove more difficult without transparent pricing.

BitSight: Public pricing information is not directly available, but prices are reported to be around $2000-$2500 per vendor per year.

RiskRecon: Public pricing information is not available. Pricing is reported to start at $10,000 and increases based on the number of vendors monitored.

UpGuard: UpGuard has a fully transparent and publicly accessible pricing model which you can view here. If you have any questions, please email sales@upguard.com.

API & Extensibility

Accessing the information in a cyber risk product outside of its graphical interface is important for integrated business strategies and consolidating data to a preferred system.

BitSight, RiskRecon, and UpGuard offer APIs.

BitSight: BitSight offers the ability for customers to extend security ratings through a Developer API.

RiskRecon: Offers a standard API to create extensibility for RiskRecon cybersecurity ratings.

UpGuard: Offers a standard API to pull data from UpGuard’s platform into other enterprise applications.

Third-party integrations

APIs are useful for technical staff, but not all information security teams have access to developers. In this situation, standard third-party integrations are an essential part of decision-making.  

BitSight, RiskRecon, and UpGuard offer integrations into other platforms.

BitSight: Offers integrations with RSA Archer GRC, CyberGRX, OneTrust Vendorpedia, ProcessUnity, MetricStream, and more.

RiskRecon: Offers integrations with GRC platforms such as RSA Archer, Sigma Ratings, Whistic, and more.

UpGuard: Integrates with Zapier to enable connections to 3,000+ apps; GRC platforms, ticketing systems like JIRA; VRM solutions like ServiceNow, and more.

Customers

BitSight: Customers include Optus / Singtel, The University of North Florida, Snam, and PROSA.

RiskRecon: Customers include Informatica, Tufts Health Plan, University of San Francisco, and Sentara.

UpGuard: Major customers include Accenture, DuPont, Fujitsu, GAP, McAfee.

Customer Reviews

Gartner Peer Insights

Overall ratings for the IT VRM Solutions market. Accurate as of January 2024
UpGuard logo

Bitsight

RiskRecon

Gartner Peer Insights

Overall ratings for the IT VRM Solutions market. Accurate as of January 2024
5 stars
4.4, based on 160 reviews. Named a Representative Vendor in the 2022 Gartner Market Guide for IT VRM Solutions
Star rating
4.5, based on 253 reviews.
Star rating
4.5, based on 52 reviews.
UpGuard logo

Bitsight

Gartner Peer Insights

Overall ratings for the IT VRM Solutions market. Accurate as of January 2024
5 stars
4.4, based on 160 reviews. Named a Representative Vendor in the 2022 Gartner Market Guide for IT VRM Solutions
Star rating
4.5, based on 253 reviews.
UpGuard logo
5 stars
4.4, based on 160 reviews. Named a Representative Vendor in the 2022 Gartner Market Guide for IT VRM Solutions
Bitsight
4.5, based on 253 reviews.
RiskRecon
4.5, based on 52 reviews.

G2

Accurate as of January 2024
UpGuard logo

Bitsight

RiskRecon

G2

Accurate as of January 2024
5 stars
4.5, based on 164 reviews. Named a G2 Market Leader for Third Party & Supplier Risk Management Software.
Star rating
4.6, based on 35 reviews.
Star rating
4.5, based on 2 reviews.
UpGuard logo

Bitsight

G2
Accurate as of January 2024
5 stars
4.5, based on 164 reviews. Named a G2 Market Leader for Third Party & Supplier Risk Management Software.
Star rating
4.6, based on 35 reviews.
UpGuard logo
5 stars
4.5, based on 164 reviews. Named a G2 Market Leader for Third Party & Supplier Risk Management Software.
Bitsight
4.6, based on 35 reviews.
RiskRecon
4.5, based on 2 reviews.

Glassdoor

Accurate as of January 2024
UpGuard logo

Bitsight

RiskRecon

Glassdoor

Accurate as of January 2024
5 stars
4.6
Star rating
4.5
Star rating
3.8
UpGuard logo

Bitsight

Glassdoor
Accurate as of January 2024
5 stars
4.6
Star rating
4.5
UpGuard logo
5 stars
4.6
Bitsight
4.5
RiskRecon
3.8

Security rating

BitSight: BitSight Security Ratings range on a scale of 250-900 with higher ratings indicating better security performance.

RiskRecon: RiskRecon distills its assessment criteria into a simple score from 0-10.

UpGuard: Security rating scale of 0-950, ranked as A: 801-950, B: 601-800, C: 401-600, D: 201-400, F: 0-200. You can request your free security rating by clicking here.


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