Reinvent the way you partner with your supply chain to fix and mitigate security issues

It’s that time of the year again, 2024 planning. Security and third-party risk management leaders are scrambling to prioritize their initiatives for the coming year, advocate for more resources, and report on their progress over the past year. When only 16% of organizations report that they effectively manage third-party risk, the new year provides a blank slate to introduce new efficiencies to existing processes. 

Collaborating with your supply chain partners is one of these areas. On average, organizations share sensitive or critical information with 88 third parties. For organizations with 10,000 or more employees, this number goes up to 173. This means that third-party risk management teams are spending a lot of time sending assessments and security teams are spending about one-third of their time responding to security questionnaires. 

Despite significant investment in evaluating third-party cyber risk, too often there is a disconnect between the analysis of findings and the ability to communicate what actions organizations should take next. Ultimately, most assessments result in no action. 

Global regulation drives transparency in third-party risk management. 

Ensuring the integrity of supply chains has become a regulatory and compliance requirement around the world. Whether it’s the recent SEC Cyber Risk Disclosure Rules in the United States, CPS-234 in Australia, DORA in Europe, or Canada’s OSFI TPRM guidelines, third-party risk management is a key priority for companies around the world. While some heavily regulated industries may already have mature third-party risk management programs in place, many organizations are just beginning to put theirs in place to comply with new rules. 

This regulatory focus creates an opportunity for third-party risk management and security teams to work together within their organization, and with their third parties to drive ecosystem security. Organizations need to rethink their approach to third-party risk management and their relationship with vendors. 

Making the world a safer place through collaboration. 

Most security assessments take place once a year. An organization sends a security assessment to their vendor, the vendor’s security team spends days to weeks completing it, and then they don’t hear back. This traditional approach is not a true partnership. 

Now, imagine if instead of the yearly assessment through spreadsheets or an ITVRM platform, security teams spent time with their vendors and partnered to share best practices and fix key security issues. What if an organization with a mature third-party risk management program spent a little bit of time with their vendor who is just starting out to share best practices? 

This would create a true partnership where vendors are more likely to respond to their customers, fix security issues, and drive mutual accountability. As a result, organizations strengthen relationships  with their suppliers and drive security improvements through their assessments. 

Introducing Action Plans: Seamlessly Collaborate with your Supply Chain 

This is why we’re excited to introduce Action Plans, bringing organizations the way to collaborate and improve their ecosystem’s security posture with confidence. Action Plans help customers streamline collaboration with internal stakeholders and their third-parties in one dashboard to generate dynamic remediation plans, prioritize critical vulnerabilities, assign specific people to fix issues, and see progress in real time, saving hours and reducing ecosystem risk. 

Action Plans can drive a fundamental shift in third-party risk management with: 

• The ability to pinpoint risk and instantly generate specific remediation plans to achieve a desired score, all the way from top-level to individual factors or specific issues that meet their risk appetite.  
• Real-time visibility into the resolution and the ability to collaborate, get updates on progress, ask clarifying questions, and streamline communication in one dashboard. 
• A scalable workflow that enables third-party risk management teams to partner with their entire supply chain. The holistic view of the resolution status of their vendors gives security and VRM teams the confidence to know where their attention is needed to drive resolution at scale. 

Watch this video to see how Action Plans can help you break down silos and partner with your supply chain at scale. 

Getting Started with SecurityScorecard 

Make 2024 the year where you work collaboratively with your supply chain partners to drive better security. If you’re already a SecurityScorecard customer, learn how to get started with Action Plans today. 

Ready to try it out and get started? Contact us to schedule a live demo and get started.