Sizing Up Risks for Third Parties and Vendors

Third parties and vendors can bring a lot of value to the table — but with that also comes risk. How do you assess, address and mitigate?

With today’s interconnected, interdependent nature of businesses and the emerging trend of hackers breaking into this web of relationships, the disruptive power of third-party risk continues to loom ever larger. It’s estimated that 65% of today’s cyber breaches are caused by third parties.

And while many organizations may have taken the cybersecurity of partners for granted in the past, with many having had to get their house in order with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the stakes for protecting your business from cyber threats have never been higher. There’s simply no room for casual business relationships based on blind trust.

As a result of the escalating risk and fallout when third-party risk becomes reality, many organizations are continuing down the path towards adopting the right cybersecurity posture and implementing robust third-party and vendor risk management (VRM). By doing so and ensuring that it is applied to its entire network of partners, an organization can effectively manage and mitigate third-party risk.

Without an effective risk management program, an organization faces real and tangible damning impacts in the form of financial losses – the average global cost of a data breach stands at an estimated US$3.86 million – customer losses, and reputational and brand damage.

More than ever you now have a strong incentive to broaden and deepen the way you manage third-party and vendor relationships. It’s not enough to ensure that your own house is in order – you have to assess every business relationship. After all, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And cybercriminals are adept at finding weak spots.

Sizing up vendor risks and third-party risks is a tricky business, which is why we have created this ebook to help you and your organization to assess, address and mitigate the risks of third parties and vendors.

SAI360 whitepaper

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Learn more about SAI360’s solutions for managing third-party risks.