Day in the Life of a CISO: Evaluating a Plugin Vendor

It’s mid-morning, and I’m making good progress when an email from a department head pops into my inbox. They’re thrilled about a new plugin that promises to streamline workflows for one of our most critical platforms. Naturally, they need me to sign off on the vendor’s security posture before they can move forward. I get it—business efficiency is important, but so is ensuring we don’t invite unnecessary risk into our environment.

I open the SecurityScorecard platform, my go-to solution for moments like this. A quick search for the vendor’s name brings up their security rating, which immediately makes me pause. Their overall score is a “C,” and drilling into the details, I see a few concerning trends: delayed patching practices and some recent incidents involving exposed data. That’s enough for me to raise an eyebrow, so I initiate a deeper dive.

Using the platform’s Vendor Risk Management module, I send a tailored security questionnaire to the vendor, focusing on their access controls, incident response plans, and data protection measures. I also activate the Automatic Vendor Detection feature to uncover any connections they might have with other service providers in our ecosystem. Unsurprisingly, I find a couple of links to high-risk providers that are already on our radar.

While I wait for the questionnaire responses, I start building a report to summarize the risks and share it with key stakeholders. SecurityScorecard’s insights make it easy to illustrate the potential vulnerabilities and explain why this vendor might pose a threat to our organization.

When the completed questionnaire arrives from the vendor, it confirms my initial concerns. Although they have some security measures in place, they fall short in key areas like access controls and patch management. I update my report with these findings and present it to the leadership team. The decision is clear: we’ll need to hold off on adopting the plugin until the vendor strengthens their security posture.

I close the loop with the requesting team, outlining the risks and providing a clear path forward for reevaluation in six months. It’s never fun to slow down a new initiative, but protecting our systems and data always comes first.

With the issue resolved for now, I move on to the next challenge, knowing that our proactive approach and the insights from SecurityScorecard have once again saved us from potential trouble.

Does this sound like your day? If not, contact us for a demo and to learn more about SecurityScorecard.