Cybersecurity Risk Assessment Platforms Explained

Traditional cybersecurity risk management and remediation efforts typically begin with cybersecurity risk assessments and penetration testing. This commonly involved outsourcing to a consultant who would offer the assessment as a standalone service or as part of a larger risk management program. 

The issue is that cyber risk assessments offered by third parties only provide a point-in-time assessment of your (or your vendor's) security controls, an inaccurate measure of the true level of risk. Additionally, they are costly, both in monetary terms and in terms of disrupting day-to-day activities.

For these reasons, organizations are prioritizing the replacement or supplementation of third-party consultative engagements with their own cyber risk management processes. This has been made possible thanks to initiatives like the National Institute of Standards (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework, which provides any organization with standards, guidelines, and practices to better manage and reduce their cybersecurity risk, as well as an explosion of sophisticated SaaS platforms.

These SaaS platforms offer continuous security monitoring, third-party risk management, attack surface management, risk assessment and remediation workflows, automated security questionnaires, and executive-friendly dashboards and reports. 

A large focus on these services is automating manual activities to promote scalability. This means small IT security teams can protect large IT environments and measure the external security posture of hundreds or even thousands of third-party vendors with the support of world-class analysts.

In this post, we'll show you how this software can be used by IT and cybersecurity teams to prevent data breaches, understand cyber threats, and stop cyber attacks.

Because these services focus on automating manual activity sets, IT security teams can use them to provide continuous threat intelligence information that would have been missed by traditional point-in-time risk assessment processes. 

Take a tour of UpGuard's risk assessment features >

What are cybersecurity risk assessment tools?

Cybersecurity risk assessment tools are software solutions designed to systematically identify, analyze, and prioritize security risks and vulnerabilities across an organization's digital infrastructure, including first-party assets and third-party vendor ecosystems. They automate activities that were once manual, slow, and expensive.

These tools are essential because they provide:

• Enhanced threat visibility: They move beyond point-in-time assessments to provide continuous, real-time insight into the evolving threat landscape.
• Compliance readiness: They automate the mapping of security controls to regulatory requirements (e.g., HIPAA, ISO 27001) for streamlined auditing and compliance.
• Proactive incident prevention: They enable organizations to prioritize remediation efforts based on the highest-impact risks, shifting from reactive cleanup to proactive prevention.

For a comprehensive overview of the tools discussed here, visit Cybersecurity Risk Assessment Tools.

Vulnerability assessment platforms

Vulnerability assessment platforms are designed to continuously scan information systems for known vulnerabilities like those listed on CVE. These tools continuously scan and analyze systems, networks, and applications (both internal and external) to identify known security weaknesses, often referencing centralized vulnerability databases such as the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) or CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures). Some solutions will also provide workflows that aid in the identification, classification, and prioritization of vulnerabilities, often by utilizing the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).

CVSS is a set of open standards for assigning a number to a vulnerability to assess its severity. CVSS scores range from 0.0 to 10.0, with higher numbers indicating a greater degree of severity.

For example, UpGuard Breach Risk automatically scans your Internet-facing information technology assets and identifies any vulnerable software that may be running on it via details exposed in HTTP headers and website content. While this does not guarantee the asset is vulnerable, it provides you with the necessary information to review potentially vulnerable systems and patch them before malicious actors can exploit the vulnerability to install malware or steal sensitive information. This process is crucial for first-party risk management and extends to assessing your third-party vendor security posture.

To start assessing the security risks posed by your vendors, download your free cybersecurity risk assessment template.

Vendor-provided tools

When developing an action plan to determine the cyber risk of an information asset, it can be tempting to buy the most comprehensive, expensive solution there is. However, most teams don't have an unlimited budget that would be better spent on high-leverage activities.

That's why it's essential to verify whether the vendor that provides the various components of your IT environment can offer tools that scan their own products for issues.

For example, Microsoft has a Security Compliance Toolkit that can be downloaded for free will provides security recommendations for Microsoft products.

While assessing IT components on a manufacturer-by-manufacturer basis isn't quick or easy, it's often inexpensive, as most providers will provide these tools at no cost to their customers. As part of a larger information security risk assessment, this kind of analysis can be an extremely valuable data point to determine your inherent risk profile.

Framework support expansion

Many general and vendor-provided tools help you manage your compliance requirements by supporting major cybersecurity and regulatory frameworks, including:

• NIST Cybersecurity Framework (NIST CSF)
• FFIEC Cybersecurity Assessment Tool (CAT)
• ISO 27001

Breach and attack simulation tools

Penetration testing is a crucial component of a comprehensive cybersecurity risk assessment. In these tests, an agent attempts to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data or a system under controlled conditions by bypassing security controls or through a form of social engineering like phishing.

In the past, many businesses relied on third parties for penetration testing, and, like other parts of the assessment process, these tests were expensive and produced only point-in-time results.

This led to the development of a new type of software designed to supplement penetration tests and provide a more continuous, DIY version of penetration testing. Breach and attack Simulation software continuously attacks your system using automated methods informed by the latest threat intelligence methods. It is a way to continuously and safely test security controls by running automated, realistic simulations of known cyberattacks and cyber threats, without the risks associated with a live breach.

While these automated solutions don't provide the same level of insight as a human pen tester, they can help fill gaps between pen tests and provide incident response practice.

Breach and attack simulation step-by-step guide:

1. Define scope of simulation: Identify target assets (e.g., a specific subnet, application, or business-critical server) and the threat type (e.g., common malware strains, zero-day exploit attempts).
2. Select tool or platform: Choose the appropriate BAS tool that can mimic the desired attack vector.
3. Run simulation: Execute the automated simulation (e.g., an internal lateral movement test, a simulated phishing campaign, or a ransomware attack payload test).
4. Review results and remediation: Analyze how security controls (like firewalls, EDR, and email security) performed, and receive an automated report with specific, prioritized remediation steps.

If you're new to risk assessments, refer to this overview of performing a third-party risk assessment.

Automated security questionnaires

Security questionnaires are one method for verifying that service providers follow appropriate information security practices, allowing you to assess the risk of entrusting them with your or your customer's data.

In the past, these questionnaires were hard to administer and required expertise to create. However, specialized tools, like UpGuard's third-party questionnaire software, provide an extensive library of pre-built questionnaires to help you start uncovering vendor-related security risks, even if you don't have expertise in this area.

These tools transform the manual, time-consuming process of due diligence into a scalable, repeatable workflow by offering:

• Vendor onboarding templates: They utilize pre-built libraries (such as those for ISO 27001, HIPAA, or PCI-DSS compliance) to rapidly send, track, and score new vendor assessments.
• Continuous reassessment workflows: These workflows automate the scheduling and delivery of follow-up questionnaires (e.g., annual assessments or post-incident reviews) to ensure consistent vendor compliance over time.

Security ratings

Security ratings are a data-driven, objective, and dynamic measurement of an organization's cybersecurity performance. Ratings are derived from objective and verifiable information provided by independent organizations, such as UpGuard.

Because they don't require privileged access to a system, security ratings were historically used to understand third-party risk exposure. An organization can use these ratings to quickly assess the cybersecurity maturity level of each of its vendors. If you are interested in third-party risk management, be sure to check out UpGuard Vendor Risk.

Many organizations now use security ratings to measure the quality of their own information security initiatives. Security ratings providers offer instant insights into any organization's attack surface–whether that be via vulnerabilities, open ports, email security, network security, or known third-party data breaches. These insights are consolidated into a comprehensive rating, which is updated daily.

Unlike other point-in-time cybersecurity assessment tools, security ratings platforms are always up-to-date and easy to set up and use.

Security ratings are a useful way to communicate how cybersecurity efforts align with business objectives, as they enable the immediate comparison of peer, competitor, and industry performance that can be understood by even the most non-technical stakeholders.

Key functions and benefits:

• Track posture across time: They provide a daily-updated, quantitative score to measure the success of internal information security initiatives and track improvement over weeks and months.
• Benchmark against peers: They offer an immediate comparison of an organization's rating against those of its competitors and industry averages, providing context for risk and resource prioritization.
• Support vendor negotiations: They serve as a non-intrusive due diligence tool that supports data-driven conversations with vendors about their risk and helps set minimum security requirements for contracts.

Using a platform like UpGuard Breach Risk allows IT and security leaders to prioritize resources where they will have the greatest impact on their risk level. Our executive reporting tools can be included in security assessment reports for the C-suite or board members who want to know how their organization stacks up against its competitors and the industry as a whole.

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Implementation guide for risk assessment tools

Effectively utilizing modern risk assessment software requires a strategic approach. This lifecycle ensures that your assessment efforts are continuous, prioritized, and aligned with business goals. 

For a deeper dive into the overall process, refer to "Perform a Cybersecurity Risk Assessment."

Asset discovery

The initial and most foundational step is to identify all digital assets. This includes internal infrastructure, cloud services, and the full list of third- and fourth-party vendors. Tools like UpGuard Breach Risk excel at mapping the external attack surface by continuously monitoring internet-facing assets. If you don't know what you have, you can't protect it.

Threat prioritization

You can't fix everything at once. This stage involves using risk scoring (like CVSS or security ratings) to rank risks by severity, exploitability, and the business impact of a potential breach. This data-driven approach enables IT and security leaders to prioritize resources in areas that will have the greatest impact on their risk level.

Continuous monitoring

Modern security demands a shift from annual audits to real-time observation. Risk assessment tools must monitor changes in security posture, new vulnerabilities, or regulatory drift on a daily basis. Continuous security monitoring is the backbone of preventing a point-in-time assessment from quickly becoming obsolete.

Reporting and remediation

The final stage involves two critical components: generating clear reports tailored to different audiences (e.g., technical teams require specific fixes, while the C-suite requires a high-level rating and business context), and utilizing built-in workflows to assign remediation tasks and track their completion.

Aligning with compliance frameworks

Compliance is a critical driver for conducting cybersecurity risk assessments. Modern tools move beyond simple compliance checking to streamline audit readiness.

Key frameworks that influence and define risk assessment needs include:

• NIST CSF (National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework)
• ISO 27001 (Information Security Management)
• SOC 2 (System and Organization Controls)
• HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)

Platforms like UpGuard can help map security assessment findings directly to specific control sets within these frameworks. By maintaining a strong security rating and continuously assessing controls, organizations can automatically generate audit-ready documentation, thereby demonstrating due diligence to auditors and regulators.

Next steps in your cybersecurity risk management program

Moving beyond point-in-time audits to continuous, data-driven security management requires the right tools and a solid program. 

To help you structure your approach, check out our introduction to SIG Lite questionnaires and guide to performing a cybersecurity risk assessment.