BLOG: How Important Is Continuous Risk Monitoring?

Third-party security breaches are increasing and rising at a large rate, equally in volume, complexity and difficulty. Third-party risk breaches have amplified based on numerous factors, the main one being the use of third party vendors has increased tremendously. According to recent data from cybersecurity professionals, businesses are presently outsourcing at an exceptional rate, 66% of larger organisations and 29% of smaller organisations sending their work outside.

Organisations are often unaware of the risks that third-party vendors expose them to. This frequently makes organisations vulnerable to preventable malicious cyber-attacks. Third-party risk management is vital for organisations and businesses, but a lack of consistent reporting and continuous risk monitoring can create challenges that put organisations at risk and leave them vulnerable to data breaches.

Examples of how quickly a cyberattack or a cybersecurity incident can capture an organisation and organisations affiliated are the SolarWinds incident and the Kaseya breach. Continuous risk monitoring and third-party risk management is imperative in helping mitigating situations like this. Third-parties pose a variety of cybersecurity risks to organisations that need to be assessed. Our recent report found 56% monitor their suppliers on an annual basis. Cyber risks change more frequently than this and the risk posed by an organisation can change significantly within a year.

Read our report to find out what percentage of organisations monitor key suppliers daily, this is something that global regulators consider to be a gold standard within third-party risk monitoring. Another percentage flex their requirement depending on the supplier and the risk exposure. Continuous risk monitoring gives you timely insight into your third parties’ security posture and certain measures must trigger the need for an assessment/re-assessment, for instance, a change in security rating. These types of assessments can theoretically prevent certain risks from being introduced into the third-party environment.