SecurityScorecard vs UpGuard: 2023 Comparison and Review

The usability, design, and learning curve of a product can play a large role in deciding which solution is right for you. The faster you and your team can get up to speed, the faster your return on investment.

SecurityScorecard and UpGuard offer their services via SaaS and are accessible from any location via a web browser.

• ‍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.

SecurityScorecard and UpGuard help organizations stay informed about their vendors’ information security risks as part of a third-party risk management (TPRM) program.

• 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 by combining security ratings with risk assessments based on popular cyber frameworks and regulations. Also supports the entire scope of vendor risk management, including due diligence and remediation programs.

Both SecurityScorecard and UpGuard identify risks using passive scans on a third party’s public-facing attack surfaces.

• 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: Scans for many critical attack vectors facilitating breaches in both the vendor and supply chain network, including phishing, ransomware susceptibility, man-in-the-middle attacks, DNSSEC, vulnerabilities, email spoofing, domain hijacking, and DNS issues.

Both SecurityScorecard and UpGuard offer comprehensive online resources to educate customers about emerging threats and best Vendor Risk Management practices.

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

UpGuard hosts a quarterly virtual summit to keep the global cybersecurity community updated with the latest VRM developments. UpGuard also publishes regularly updated blogs, however, UpGuard's blogs are reviewed by industry experts to verify trustworthiness. UpGuard's VRM blog content has also been regarded as more in-depth and helpful. In addition to in-depth blogs, UpGuard sends a weekly data breach newsletter to keep subscribers informed of the latest global cyberattack events.

• SecurityScorecard: Offers a user Academy, along with a regularly updated company blog, webinar series, and resource center.‍
• UpGuard: UpGuard keeps the VRM community continuously updated with the latest industry developments through its blog content, quarterly summit event, and weekly data breach newsletter.

The speed at which a security platform can incorporate changes determines how well it can respond to new threats and customer requests. An ideal security solution should continuously update, adjust, and improve its threat detection methodology in response to changes in the threat landscape.

• 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.

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.

Both SecurityScorecard and UpGuard offer APIs.

• SecurityScorecard: SecurityScoreCard offers API connections for users seeking greater security rating 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.  

Both SecurityScorecard and UpGuard offer integrations into other platforms.

• SecurityScorecard: Offers integrations with several third-party platforms such as RSA Archer, ServiceNow, and more.‍
• UpGuard: Integrates with multiple services, including Zapier to enable connections to 3,000+ apps; GRC platforms, ticketing systems like JIRA; VRM solutions like ServiceNow, and more.

The trust of prestigious companies is a powerful indicator of the effectiveness of a solution, Both UpGuard and SecurityScorecard have an impressive customer base trusting each solution's vendor risk management capabilities.

• 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.

Here's what a few UpGuard customers had to say about their experience. You can read more on Gartner reviews.

"UpGuard has given us a view of our vendor security posture. The ability to launch a questionnaire or ask for a plan of remediation for items that show as vulnerable is also a great added value and a time saver. UpGuard is also very customer-focused. They respond quickly to issues and questions and welcome any input that could improve the product. Overall it is one of the best value add tools we have."

"The simplicity of the product is fantastic. My team and I were able to be up and running in minutes. We monitor risks on over 25 vendors in near real-time and use these statistics to report to the C suite and Board of Directors. UpGuard has become part of the critical cybersecurity metrics that we monitor and report upon."

"The ease of use and simplicity of the product is excellent. We were able to be up and running with 50 vendors within minutes, not hours. The reporting is used for monthly statistics and is reported to our Senior Management. UpGuard has become an integral part of our critical cybersecurity metrics that we monitor and report upon."

• ‍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.

Finally, let's take a look at how SecurityScorecard and UpGuard compare when assessed with the security rating solution on UpGuard's platform on July 28, 2020. It's important to note that UpGuard adheres to the Principles of Fair and Accurate Security Ratings, removing all biases in this analysis.

• Accuracy and Validation: UpGuard's security ratings are empirical, data-driven, and based on independently verifiable and accessible information.
• Model Governance: The datasets and methodologies used to calculate our security ratings can change in line with our improving understanding of cybersecurity risk mitigation. When this happens, we provide reasonable notice and explanation to our customers about the impact on their security rating.
• Independence: No commercial agreement or lack thereof allows an organization to improve its security rating outside of the unbiased measurements of UpGuard's security ratings.‍
• Confidentiality: Any information disclosed to UpGuard during a challenged rating or dispute is appropriately protected. Nor do we provide third parties with sensitive or confidential information on rated organizations that could lead to system compromise.