RiskIQ vs Whistic

We assess three TPRM solutions, RiskIQ, Whistic, and UpGuard, to help you make an informed decision before investing in the right solution for your needs.

RiskIQ Overview

RiskIQ is a cybersecurity company based in San Francisco, California. RiskIQ provides cloud-based software as a service for organizations to manage their attack surface and detect phishing, fraud, malware, and other online security threats.

RiskIQ was founded in 2009 by Lou Manousos, Chris Kiernan, and David Pon.

RiskIQ UI. Source: riskiq.com

Whistic Overview

Whistic is based in Salt Lake City, Utah and aims to help companies hold each other accountable for protecting their shared data. Customers can use Whistic’s workflows to conduct security reviews and respond to security reviews in one platform.

Whistic expedites the risk assessment process by making vendor security information available to prospective partners through its Whistic Trust Catalog. Their platform has tools to help you onboard, assess, and track vendors by allowing you to compare third parties against a set of predefined criteria based on vendor questionnaires, documentation, and metadata.

Vendors can assess themselves against one of the top vendor questionnaires and publish it to their profile, along with supporting documentation, including audits and certifications. These profiles can be made available to existing and prospective business partners to expedite the risk assessment process.

Whistic UI. Source: whistic.com

RiskIQ, Whistic, and UpGuard help organizations stay informed about their vendors’ information security risks as part of third-party risk management (TPRM) and vendor due diligence programs.

• RiskIQ: Focuses on first-party attack surface management and does not provide a real solution for third-party risk management.
• Whistic: Relies on point-in-time risk assessments that can become outdated until the next assessment process.
• 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.

RiskIQ, Whistic, and UpGuard help organizations stay informed about their vendors’ information security risks as part of third-party risk management (TPRM) and vendor due diligence programs.

• RiskIQ: Focuses on first-party attack surface management and does not provide a real solution for third-party risk management.
• Whistic: Relies on point-in-time risk assessments that can become outdated until the next assessment process.
• 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.

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.

RiskIQ, Whistic, and UpGuard offer comprehensive online resources to educate and inform customers.

RiskIQ: Company and product blog.

Whistic: 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.

Keeping customers and the cybersecurity community informed on the latest cyber security developments is paramount, with new vulnerabilities and threats emerging daily.

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.

• RiskIQ: The frequency of RiskIQ’s updates is not stated on the website.
• Whistic: The release model for Whistic is unknown.
• 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.

• RiskIQ: Rumored to start at $35 per 1,000 analyzed pages per year or $150,000 per analyzed brand plus cumulative consumer downloads per year for mobile products.
• Whistic: Reported to start at $25,000 and is based on the number of vendors managed in the platform or the number of security questionnaires to which you’re responding.
• 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.

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.

RiskIQ, Whistic, and UpGuard offer APIs.

• RiskIQ: Provides a standard API.
• Whistic: Offers standard APIs facilitating integrations with other internal software solutions.
• UpGuard: Offers a standard API to pull data from UpGuard’s platform into other enterprise applications.

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.

RiskIQ, Whistic, and UpGuard offer integrations into other platforms.

• RiskIQ: Integrates with Cloudflare, Splunk, Crowdstrike, Qualys, Rapid7, ServiceNow, and more.
• Whistic: Integrates with RiskRecon, Active Directory, Okta, and onelogin.
• UpGuard:Integrates with Zapier to enable connections to 3,000+ apps; GRC platforms, ticketing systems like JIRA; VRM solutions like ServiceNow, and more.

• RiskIQ: Customers include Amazon, Disney, Box, Facebook, McKesson, Toyota, United, Pepsi, Rackspace, DocuSign, and American Express.
• Whistic: Customers include Betterment, Invision, Airbnb, Zynga, and Robinhood.
• UpGuard: Major customers include Accenture, New York Stock Exchange, Tech Mahindra, IAG, Hopin, NSW Government, and Morningstar.

• RiskIQ: Focuses on first-party attack surface management and does not provide a real solution for third-party risk management.
• Whistic: Relies on standardized security questionnaires.
• 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.