Beyond Compliance: How Cyber Threat Intelligence Fortifies Third-Party Risk Management

Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) is a critical function for modern organizations, given the reliance on external vendors and partners. The interconnectedness of digital ecosystems means that a breach at a third party can have severe repercussions for your organization. In a recent Dark Reading survey, 30% of organizations experienced some or many supply chain attacks over the past 12 months, and only 14% of respondents reported themselves confident their supply chain is completely secure. Furthermore, the 2025 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report found that breaches attributed to third-party involvement have doubled since 2024. All of these statistics are pointing to the need for evolving how we manage third-party risk.

Evolving the third-party risk program

Traditional TPRM approaches are often based predominantly on point-in-time assessments and fall short in addressing the dynamic nature of risks and threats across the third-party portfolio. The practice of continually monitoring third parties is becoming more common, but Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) is often only leveraged by an organization’s Security Operations Center (SOC) or Incident Response (IR) teams when considering their own assets. This post explores how integrating CTI can significantly enhance TPRM programs, providing a more complete and continuous view of risks and threats in the third-party environment.

Key benefits of effective cyber threat intelligence in TPRM

The trend of integrating CTI into TPRM programs started with organizations that value enriched visibility into threats and imminent risks–particularly in industries like telecommunication, education, transportation, and technologies. When set up properly, any organization with a TPRM mandate can gain benefits including:  

Validated assessments

A questionnaire-based third party assessment often falls short of identifying risks in a new vendor relationship. Additional data is required to validate security responses. Security ratings and similar analytics are often used for this purpose to great effect. But CTI data can bring this to another level by not only providing detail on products and vulnerabilities, but real time information about what industries, companies, and CVEs threat actors are targeting, allowing you to connect what’s going on in the real world to your assessment.   

Vulnerability identification and prioritization

CTI can provide visibility into which vulnerabilities are most likely to be exploited by threat actors, allowing for prioritization across the third party portfolio. Most TPRM organizations do not intend to perform Vulnerability Management of third parties, but identifying and mitigating extremely dangerous vulnerabilities, or ones that are actively being exploited, can lower the overall risk of the partnership.

Improved threat detection and alerting

Threat intelligence will uncover a lot of data, especially when you are looking beyond your directly-owned assets and into the realm of third parties. An effective CTI platform can translate all of the activity and unstructured data that a threat hunter would otherwise need to sift through, making it useful and actionable for the third party analyst. Given the volume of data and the number of third parties that might be monitored, effective alerting is critical.

Responding to major security events in the supply chain (and maybe anticipating some of them)

Ransomware and other security events have been directly affecting supply chains as long as software vulnerabilities have existed. In most cases, a response is necessary. This may include outreach to critical third parties to understand if they have been affected and if vulnerabilities still exist. Without CTI, this can be a very unfocused effort (sometimes sending emails to every vendor). By gathering key details such as the Products affected, the Vulnerabilities on those products, the Threat Groups involved, and a past history of how systems have been exploited, the organization can target their response. Additionally, many APTs and threat groups have specialties (such as attacking Secure File Transfer systems), and this data can be used to anticipate trends. Ask yourself: Which third parties in my portfolio might be next if they are using Secure File Transfer? Lastly, an effective threat intelligence platform can notify you about underground chatter related to your third-party portfolio, allowing you to anticipate if your critical vendors are being targeted.

How to integrate CTI into TPRM

Many third-party teams already receive threat feeds from their Security Operations Center (SOC) peers. However, there's significant value in third-party teams owning and tailoring threat intelligence platforms to meet their specific needs. This ownership allows for customized searches and alerts, focusing on the most relevant threats to their third-party portfolio. Ultimately, a partnership between SOC and GRC teams is important.

Successfully integrating CTI into TPRM requires careful planning and execution. Key considerations include:

• Alignment with experts across the organization: Collaboration between TPRM teams and SOC experts is essential to ensure effective use of threat intelligence. Additionally, vulnerability management and incident response teams should play a key role.
• Platform ownership and customization: Third-party risk teams should own their CTI platform to configure alerts and searches tailored to their specific requirements.
• Workflow integration: Mapping CTI insights to TPRM workflows, such as vendor intake and ongoing monitoring, is crucial.

CTI + TPRM = Business Value

By leveraging CTI, organizations can enhance their TPRM programs to:

• Reduce risk: Proactively identify and mitigate potential threats in their supply chain.
• Strengthen reputation: Protect their reputation by anticipating and responding effectively to breaches originating from third parties.
• Go beyond compliance: Demonstrate a more mature and proactive approach to TPRM, exceeding auditor expectations and differentiating themselves from competitors.
• Improve efficiency: Focus on relevant threats and reduce alert fatigue.

Integrating cyber threat intelligence is no longer a luxury but a necessity for effective third-party risk management. By embracing CTI, organizations can move beyond traditional, reactive approaches and build a more resilient and secure supply chain.

Ready to see how your organization could incorporate CTI into your third-party risk management program? Request a demo today.