Reducing Third-Party Risk with Continuous Monitoring

Continuous monitoring leverages powerful data analysis technology to keep a finger on the pulse of your vendors’ changing security postures. Instead of relying on point-in-time, subjective security assessments and questionnaires, with continuous monitoring you can ensure vendors maintain good security practices from onboarding and for the life of the contract. Ongoing monitoring is a best practice because it helps identify risk and minimize surprises throughout the vendor risk management lifecycle.

• These could include your database developer, cloud service provider, website hosting service, payment processing company, and raw material supplier.
• A continuous monitoring solution gives you near-instantaneous data about your chosen KPIs without your team’s manual input.
• Cybersecurity, for instance, is a constant source of risk as new vulnerabilities and threats emerge daily.
• In 2021, organizations will need to move beyond traditional corporate social responsibility reporting, and include ESG issues.
• Quickly scale your TPRM program by accessing libraries of comprehensive vendor intelligence profiles supported by real-time risk monitoring.

It is always a good idea to visit vendor facilities to conduct on-site audits. Consider the importance that your relationship with a given vendor holds for your business. And based on the significance of the association, define the roles and responsibilities of the vendor if any risk threatens your business. Period evaluation of the vendor’s information/cybersecurity safeguards, SOC reports, evidence of compliance with privacy and ethical frameworks, and disaster recovery plans. The vetting and audit process can include penetration testing, site visits, and comparing risk scores of different vendors. RFx Essentials Strengthen RFP and RFI processes with automation and risk intelligence.

Continuous Third-Party Monitoring: A Key Component to Every TPRM Program

In an effective third-party risk management program, continuous monitoring is essential to guarding against vulnerabilities in your supply chain. Using a third-party risk management software platform can help your team leverage the power of data for proactive problem-solving at all stages of your vendor management process. That is why it is important to provide ongoing visibility into vendor threats. External risks to third parties are constantly tracked and analyzed by Prevalent’s Vendor Threat Monitor. The approach looks for cyber risks and vulnerabilities on the Internet and the dark web, as well as public and private streams of reputational information, and financial data. The Vendor Threat Monitor module is combined with inside-out Vendor Risk Assessment as part of the Prevalent’s Third-Party Risk Management Platform.

Security breach at Atrium Health — In 2018, Atrium Health experienced a data breach experienced a data breach that exposed the confidential details of over 2.65 million patients. A compromise of servers used by Atrium Health’s billing provider, AccuDoc Solutions, caused the leak. Contract Essentials Automate the vendor contract lifecycle – from onboarding to offboarding. Prevalent TPRM Platform Identify, analyze, and remediate risk throughout the vendor lifecycle.

Steps to Prepare for Continuous Monitoring in Your TPRM Program

Reduce risk by validating the results of point-in-time controls assessments with continuous monitoring insights. Access a database containing 10+ years of data breach history for thousands of companies around the world. Includes https://globalcloudteam.com/ types and quantities of stolen data; compliance and regulatory issues; and real-time vendor data breach notifications. Tap into financial information from a global network of millions of businesses across 160+ countries.

Seamlessly integrate with key enterprise systems or external content providers through a robust web services-based API. Make the source-to-contract process more efficient by executing RFx processes, performing initial due diligence and driving the awarded vendor through initial onboarding. Research shows that organizations share their data with over 730 different vendors.

How to automate vendor risk management

Ongoing monitoring requires discipline, and while we outline several best practices, they’re all designed to provide a deeper look into the vendor to ensure you can identify and mitigate risk as much as possible. The information collected during this stage can highlight exactly where you need to pay attention. For example, suppose you’re reviewing a vendor’s most recent financial https://globalcloudteam.com/how-continuous-monitoring-helps-enterprises/ statement and notice a decline in financial condition. As a result, you would need to investigate the situation in order to determine if it will affect the products/services they provide to your organization (e.g., confirm they aren’t planning to sunset a product or service). A high-risk supplier is a supplier whose actions could disrupt your own company’s operations and success.

Working closely with your legal team, you’ll want to create contracts that outline the specifics of your business relationship and compliance expectations you hold for your vendors. Manual tiering is a popular route that provides organizations with greater flexibility and personal preference. Organizations can also use tools such as security questionnaires to score a vendor’s risk potential.

Why You Need Continuous Monitoring of Third-Party Vendors

Poor public perception could lead to reduced revenue, loss of customers, and more. Below are just a few reasons to begin or improve your process for managing third-party risk. Secureframe Comply The automated compliance platform built by compliance experts.Secureframe Trust Grow customer confidence and credibility.Product Updates See what’s new with our products. Notify your vendors so they can quickly remediate the issue before a threat actor exploits the flaw. While these tests can uncover security gaps, relying on tests that are performed intermittently is risky.

It revolves around the identification, monitoring, remediation, and resolution of vendor risks. A comprehensive third-party monitoring program can help you mitigate the impact of vendor data breaches, supply… You can screen vendors for various types of risk, including security infrastructure, financial viability, anti-corruption, and other relevant criteria. After identifying the need for a thorough vendor risk management program, it’s time to map out each step of the process. Throughout the vendor relationship, your organization should be monitoring vendor compliance and performance to help eliminate risks. Compare performance against the contract in place as well as the industry standards for security to ensure your vendors remain competitive.

Services

Consider these best practices to limit your risk exposure when offboarding vendors and suppliers. Data breach at General Electric — GE announced a data breach in 2020, which was caused by their service provider Canon Business Process Services. A hacked email server resulted in the public disclosure of publicly identifying information about current and former GE recipients and staff. Assess, monitor, analyze, and remediate vendor information security, operational, and data privacy risks. Gain a 360-degree view of third-party risk with our self-service SaaS platform for unified assessment and monitoring.

You minimize the risk of human error and unintentional negligence when evaluating your vendors’ performance, which hopefully takes some of the pressure off your team. You reduce the risk of operational downtime from disruption because your team will have a faster incident response rate. You reduce costs by streamlining team resources — and time — allocated for manually detecting and responding to potential security threats, letting you focus on more strategic activities instead. They began in less-sensitive areas of the network before moving on to those that were used to manage consumer data.

Building Your Third-Party Risk Monitoring Program

Managing and reducing risks—particularly with regard to security and privacy—should be a priority for all companies. Vendors often have access to a lot of your company’s (and, more importantly, your customers’) information. When vendors fail to live up to these standards, they increase their risk for a data breach; when such a breach occurs, it’s often because of negligence in their duty to protect your customers’ data.