SecurityScorecard vs Recorded Future product overview
Learn more about the products and how they compare.
Overview
As outsourcing significant business functions is now common practice for most organizations, major third-party data breaches are rapidly taking over news headlines.
Ponemon Institute and IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report found the average cost of a breach has increased from $370,000 to $4.35 million, with third-party involvement listed as one of the main reasons. An eSentire survey from the same year highlights that 44% of firms surveyed have experienced a significant data breach caused by a third-party vendor.
With Gartner reporting 60% of organizations as having 1000+ third-party relationships, effectively managing the cybersecurity risks they create and practicing vendor due diligence proves increasingly difficult.
Information security teams often also rely on manual risk reporting methods which are time and labor-intensive. Many organizations are now turning to automated third-party risk management (TPRM) solutions that automate data breach detection capabilities, provide real-time insights, and streamline remediation workflows.
We assess three TPRM solutions, SecurityScorecard, Recorded Future, and UpGuard, to help you make an informed decision before investing in the right solution for your needs.
SecurityScorecard Overview
SecurityScorecard is a New York-based security ratings platform that uses traffic and other publicly accessible data to build security ratings to evaluate vendors and manage cyber risk among other use cases.
SecurityScoreCard also monitors “hacker chatter” and other public data feeds for indicators of compromise.

The SecurityScorecard UI. Source: securityscorecard.com.
Recorded Future Overview
Recorded Future is a US-based threat intelligence platform that collects digital threat intelligence data from the Internet including open source, dark web, technical sources, and original research.
Recorded Future’s platform uses machine learning and natural language process AI to deliver accessible intelligence insights across six risk categories: brand, threat, third-party, SecOps, vulnerability, and geopolitical.

Recorded Future UI. Source: recordedfuture.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 and the 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.
-
SecurityScorecard: Simple interface for quick grade reports and charts.
-
Recorded Future: Interface is easy to read. Workflow is intuitive to new users but still requires time to master.
-
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
SecurityScorecard, Recorded Future, 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.
-
SecurityScorecard: Provides security ratings that aggregate different risks into a single score, allowing for the comparison of different third-party vendors and service providers.
-
Recorded Future: Continuously monitors 150,000+ companies.
-
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.
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.
SecurityScorecard, Recorded Future, and UpGuard offer comprehensive online resources to educate and inform customers.
SecurityScorecard: Offers a user Academy, along with a regularly updated company blog, webinar series, and resource center.
Recorded Future: The Recorded Future Podcast deep dives into cyber threat intelligence and provides industry insights. The Recorded Future Blog covers Intelligence analysis, industry perspectives, product updates, and company news.
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.
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.
-
SecurityScorecard: SecurityScoreCard makes releases as needed throughout the year, consistently enabling customer users to access information logs of beneficial changes.
-
Recorded Future: The frequency of Recorded Future’s updates is not stated on the website.
-
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 and 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.
-
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.
-
Recorded Future: Pricing for Recorded Future’s platform is not available on the website. Online product reviews suggest that it’s priced higher than some competitors.
-
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 and extensibility
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.
SecurityScorecard, Recorded Future, and UpGuard offer APIs.
-
SecurityScorecard: SecurityScoreCard offers API connections for users seeking greater security rating extensibility
-
Recorded Future: Offers RESTful APIs to allow integration to Recorded Future’s automated intelligence.
-
UpGuard: Offers a standard API to pull data from UpGuard’s platform into other enterprise applications.
Third-party integrations
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.
SecurityScorecard, Recorded Future, and UpGuard offer integrations into other platforms.
-
SecurityScorecard: Offers integrations with several third-party platforms such as RSA Archer, ServiceNow, and more.
-
Recorded Future: Integrates with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM); Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR); endpoint security (EDR); incident response systems; vulnerability management tools, like AWS, Splunk, ServiceNow, Slack, and more.
Customers
-
SecurityScorecard: Major customers include Hershey, Cleveland Clinic, Avangrid, and ADT.
-
Recorded Future: Major customers include Accenture, DuPont, Fujitsu, GAP, and McAfee.
-
UpGuard: Major customers include Accenture, New York Stock Exchange, Tech Mahindra, IAG, Hopin, NSW Government, and Morningstar.
Security rating
-
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.
-
Recorded Future: Provides a score between 0-100 along with a level of criticality, labeled as Informational (5-24), Moderate (25-64), or High (65-99).
-
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.