• CUSTOMER LOGIN
  • Products
    • TPRM by ThirdPartyTrust
    • Beacon by ThirdPartyTrust
  • Company
    • About us
    • Partners
    • Product Security
    • Privacy Policy
REQUEST DEMO
  • Products
    • TPRM by ThirdPartyTrust
    • Beacon by ThirdPartyTrust
  • Company
    • About us
    • Partners
    • Product Security
    • Privacy Policy
REQUEST DEMO
  • CUSTOMER LOGIN
  • Products
    • TPRM by ThirdPartyTrust
    • Beacon by ThirdPartyTrust
  • Company
    • About us
    • Partners
    • Product Security
    • Privacy Policy
REQUEST DEMO
  • CUSTOMER LOGIN
  • Products
    • TPRM by ThirdPartyTrust
    • Beacon by ThirdPartyTrust
  • Company
    • About us
    • Partners
    • Product Security
    • Privacy Policy
REQUEST DEMO
  • PARTNERS LOGIN
  • CONTACT US
  • PRIVACY POLICY

EMERGING TECHNOLOGY, UNKNOWN RISKS: DEPAUL UNIVERSITY’S FOURTH ANNUAL CYBER RISK CONFERENCE | PART ONE

Published by Guest Writer on November 29, 2017
Categories
  • Blog
Tags
  • Cybersecurity
  • TPRM Best Practices
depaul-universitys-fourth-annual-cyber-risk-conference

DePaul University’s Arditti Center for Risk Management hosted its 4th annual Cyber-Risk Conference earlier this week with over 100 attendees. Three panels took place that day, one moderated by Anders Norremo, CEO of ThirdPartyTrust, on the topic of The Cloud and Third Party Vendor Managament. Panelists included Kyle Brunell, IT Risk manager at Ernst & Young; Shane Hibbard, Director of Information Security at Invenergy; Richard Latayan, Cybersecurity and Network Infrastructure Manager at Hollister.

DEPAUL UNIVERSITY'S FOURTH ANNUAL CYBER RISK CONFERENCE

The majority of businesses do not create the technology they use, whether it be the cloud, machine learning software, automated processes, or even physical devices like drones or automated vehicles. By necessity, companies must outsource development—and to a certain extent, management—to third party vendors. But what kind of risks and threats are companies exposing themselves to in the third party vendor dynamic? What are some successful models for third party vendor management?

This panel discussion revolves around advising on how to get started building a vendor risk assessment and management program in an organization with hundreds, if not thousands of vendors.

WHAT IS AT THE FOREFRONT OF VENDOR RISK MANAGEMENT?

Scope was the recurring theme of this panel as all panelists agree this is a key aspect in building any vendor risk management process. Scope involves mapping your vendors out across different industries, as well as, data protection — knowing what your sensitive data is up front and who is going to have access to it.

Past panels have mentioned executive buy-in & finding good measurements (Cyber Security Chicago Panel), and taking their organizations security to the next level (Cybersecurity and Manufacturing Panel) as challenges.

HOW CAN COMPANIES GET STARTED WITH BUILDING A PROGRAM?

Having recently joined Invenergy, Hibbard says he’s been meeting with the executive leadership at his organization regularly as he establishes a vendor risk management program. As we’ve found from previous panels and studies, executive buy-in has proved to be a necessity in the process as their engagement in information security correlates with vendor risk management maturity.

Latayan, who has experience in building security programs for companies like Walgreens, says Hollister is at the very early stages right now, so he had to get creative.


“When you start a security program you don’t typically get immediate funding, so my strategy involved partnering with the project management team, which allowed me to see the entire portfolio of projects. My entry point from there was sending out a newly developed security questionnaire to any new vendors we were going to work with and were going to share sensitive information with.”

Latayan also recommends leveraging internal audit, which can help to be the voice and awareness of the senior leadership team.

Brunell also adds to Latayan’s point, stating that piggybacking off of other’s efforts can be a great way to jumpstart a program. “Get integrated with the project management team or procurement process, or even legal.” He stresses that keeping it simple is also key, otherwise if you come off with too long of a questionnaire or too robust of a process, people will tend to avoid it. 

“Don’t try and boil the ocean and try and get through all 1,000 vendors in one day. Get the ball rolling by starting with key vendors and build on from there” advises Brunell.  

WHAT ARE SOME KEY METRICS PEOPLE SHOULD BE MEASURING?

The panel recommends mapping two things: coverage and effectiveness. Coverage meaures how wide the reach of your program is and how many vendors have gone through an assessment. Effectiveness measures how quick the turn around of assessments — the process should not become bottlenecked due to slow assessing as this can turn into a way for everyone to be wary of the process.

Ideally, tiering vendors based on criticality and assessing those first allows you to hone in and expose critical risks, allowing you to mitigate accordingly, rather than assessing vendors randomly. Here are 6 tiering criteria our clients use when measuring vendor impact: 

  1. Type of Information 
  2. Criticality of Service 
  3. Ease of Replacement
  4. Volume of Information
  5. Legal and Regulatory Requirements
  6. Size of Commitment

HOW DO YOU GET THE VENDOR ENGAGED AFTER THE CONTRACT HAS BEEN SIGNED?

Hibbard says look for the leverage you have:


“Find champions within the company and make sure they know that security is important and that you’re going to need cooperation from them. Most people want to do the right thing — vendors want your business and want a good reputation in the industry so they should be willing to work with you as long as you go about it in a reasonable manner.”

Look for opportunities that allow you to have dialogue with your different vendors. For example, when a contract is up for renewal, take that opportunity to have a discussion about security — have legal teams help facilitate the conversation.

Norremo adds his personal experience:


“Most vendors are typically not insecure by choice — usually they don’t have the know-how, budget or resources, and that’s okay. That’s where I think it’s the enterprise’s responsibility to help them out and provide some guidance. What I’ve found is most vendors will appreciate the feedback — it’s like free consulting to them. They want to become secure, they’re just unsure of where to start.”

As we’ve taken notice, enterprises struggle with managing thousands of vendors. The design of current solutions don’t allow for scale. ThirdPartyTrust’s platform is built for scale, allowing information security teams to assess more vendors with better information without hiring more analysts. 




To learn how our ThirdPartyTrust platform can help improve your TPRM strategy, request a demo now:


Request Demo
Guest Writer
Guest Writer
  • Phone
    |+1-617-245-0469
  • Address
    |
    111 Huntington Ave, Suite 2010, Boston, MA 02199
  • Sales
    |sales@bitsighttech.com
  • Contact Us
Laika_SOC2_TypeI_PurpleIris        CSA_Trusted_Cloud_Provider

©2024 ThirdPartyTrust, LLC and its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. | 111 Huntington Ave. Suite 2010 Boston, MA 02199
  • PARTNERS LOGIN
  • CONTACT US
  • PRIVACY POLICY
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
Do not sell my personal information.
Reject AllAccept
Cookie Settings
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT