Black Kite vs SecurityScorecard: 2023 Comparison and Review

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

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

Black Kite: Interface that grades risk categories from A to F.

SecurityScorecard: Simple interface for quick grade reports and charts.

UpGuard: Clean interface offers intuitive navigation to precise risk insights, workflow management, and reporting. Cloud-based platform provides turnkey deployment with no installation required.

‍Black Kite: Provides Cyber Risk ratings based on ten risk categories and 250+ control items.

SecurityScorecard: Provides security ratings that aggregate different risks into a single score, allowing for the comparison of different third-party vendors and service providers.‍

UpGuard: Offers real-time visibility into any third-party vendor’s risk posture & security rating along with total automation for managing vendor due diligence and remediation programs.

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

Black Kite, SecurityScorecard, and UpGuard genuinely differ here.

Black Kite: Performs non-intrusive checks including passive DNS, attack surface detection, passive vulnerability scanning, DNS health, SSL/TLS strength, and email security, as well as asset reputation, credential compromises, hacktivist shares, social media monitoring, dark web search, cloud delivery network security, fraudulent apps, and DDoS detection. They do not, however, provide real transparency into the efficacy of these checks.

SecurityScorecard: SecurityScorecard utilizes active and passive data collection methods that are publicly available.
The data collected provides indicators of risk relating to open ports, DNS, HSTS, SSL (and more) that are processed via their proprietary algorithm to produce individual security ratings.

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.

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.

BlackKite, SecurityScorecard, and UpGuard offer comprehensive online resources to educate and inform customers.

Each company has its blog that is a useful source of information for cybersecurity awareness training, as well as vendor risk management best practices.

Black Kite: Company and product blog.

SecurityScorecard: SecurityScoreCard offers a user Academy for customer users along with a regularly updated company blog, webinar series, and resource center.  

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.

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.

BlackKite:

SecurityScorecard: SecurityScoreCard makes releases as needed throughout the year, consistently enabling customer users to access information logs of beneficial changes.

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.

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.

Black Kite: Public pricing information is not available.

SecurityScorecard: Public pricing information is not available. Reports say pricing starts at $16,500 for self-assessment plus five vendors, and additional vendors cost $1,500-$2,000 per vendor per year.

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.

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.

Black Kite, SecurityScorecard and UpGuard offer APIs.

Black Kite:

SecurityScorecard: SecurityScoreCard offers API connections for users seeking greater security ratings extensibility

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

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.  

Black Kite, SecurityScorecard and UpGuard offer integrations into other platforms.

Black Kite: Integrates with Supply Wisdom and VendorInsight.

SecurityScorecard: Offers integrations with several third party platforms such as RSA Archer, ServiceNow, 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.

Black Kite: Customers include Polk & Wardwell, LLP, a Fortune 500 retailer, and an OTC financial institution.

SecurityScorecard: Major customers include Symantec, Pepsico, Two Sigma, and Stony Brook University.

UpGuard: Major customers across highly regulated sectors include Accenture, New York Stock Exchange, Tech Mahindra, and Morningstar.

Black Kite: Provides a risk rating from A to F, like a report card.

SecurityScorecard: Provides a security rating on a numerical scale from 0-100 with letter scale breakdowns ranged within an A - F report card based scale.

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.