Vendor Management Program
Vendors play key roles in the success of many organizations. Let Sikich help assess and manage the risk associated with yours.
Take a closer look at high-profile breaches and you might be surprised at what was uncovered. Many have been traced back to vulnerabilities or breaches that occurred in a third-party vendor’s environment. The reality is that these security breaches don’t discriminate against any company type. Large, small or in between, there is a lot to lose if you don’t proactively and safely manage these relationships.
The obvious repercussions involve financial or data loss. But what could be even more harmful for organizations that have taken years or decades to build brand equity is significant reputational damage. if you are leveraging third-party vendors for assistance with completing projects, implementing systems and tools, or supplementing existing staff, these vendors pose a credible risk to your organization, and your ability to accurately assess and manage that risk is critical.
Minimize the risk associated with third-party vendors
To address vendor-related risks, organizations must implement a comprehensive process for validating the security posture of potential vendors. Vendor security assessment activities must not only occur at the onset of the entity-vendor relationship, but also on an ongoing basis and for the life of the contract. You might be wondering if this is truly necessary or thinking it’s a bit of overkill. If you were to talk to the growing number of organizations that have experienced breaches related to vendor relationships, they would undoubtedly confirm that vendor management is a critical component of your organization’s success.
What should Be included?
Vendor management is crucial to the security of an organization, As such, the process for validating security measures must include all the essentials. The vendor security assessment process must be:
- Standardized
- Accessible
- Updated regularly to include current threat vectors
- Performed by security professionals with proper experience
- Interpreted easily to support practical and timely decision making
What to Expect
Although vendor management is vital, most organizations don’t have qualified resources on staff with the dedicated time required to properly assess vendors, or the budget available to hire resources specifically for this purpose. That doesn’t mean it should be ignored. We have a solution.
Sikich can assist in addressing these gaps by utilizing our security expertise to help implement a robust vendor management program for less cost than building and maintaining the program in house. To accomplish this, Sikich employs a multi-phased process that first creates the audit criteria and associated questionnaires, and then implements the program through a tiered audit approach based on the risk a given vendor poses to your organization.
