Welcome back to our Overcoming Cybersecurity Headwinds blog series—inspired by my latest webinar about third party risk with Marc Crudginton, CISO at Howard Hughes Corporation. In our last blog, we explored the wisdom of centrally managing cyber risk efforts across your organization and your third-party supply chain—a strategy that helps you do more with less in an era of budget constraints. Today, we dive deeper into the core of efficient Third Party Risk Management (TPRM): Automation.
Cyber threats don't sleep, and neither should your defense. But there aren’t enough hours in the day to assess, continuously monitor, and reassess every third party in your ecosystem. Automation is your ally in achieving scale across the entire third-party lifecycle. It's about doing more with what you have.
By incorporating automated risk management across key workflows in your third-party risk program, you can effectively manage a growing vendor network and tackle emerging threats—even with limited resources.
Here’s how the Chief Information Security Officer of The Howard Hughes Corporation is leveraging Bitsight to do so:
Effective automation begins with one crucial element: objective data. When automation is fueled by reliable, real-time data, it becomes a precision instrument that is optimized to respond to actual risks rather than perceived ones.
Let's get practical. What aspects of your TPRM program can you automate to achieve those time-saving, efficiency-boosting results? See below for a quick rundown on pro tips from customers like Howard Hughes Corporation, on how to automate your program:
Automate the process of assessing inherent risk—the one posed to your organization by a third party before you’ve introduced any risk mitigation techniques. Objective data, such as Bitsight security ratings, helps you assign accurate inherent risk scores, allowing you to manage vendors more effectively.
Streamline your vendor risk assessments by intelligently routing requirements based on risk levels and compliance needs. Implementing a tool like Bitsight Vendor Risk Management helps automate the risk assessment process so you can retire manual tools like emails and spreadsheets.
Questionnaires are a great tool to assess vendors, but they can be subjective and error-prone. Automation can verify vendor responses against objective data, providing a trust-but-verify approach that minimizes the risk of misinformation.
Understanding what you’re up against in terms of third-party risk exposure and emerging threats across your extended supply chain isn’t easy. With Bitsight Continuous Monitoring, you can automatically identify vendor connections, shadow IT, and potentially risky fourth parties, get alerts on security events, and increase visibility over concentrated risk from service providers.
Know when a vendor is out of alignment with your risk appetite. Automate alerts that flag policy violations, enabling rapid response to deviations from cybersecurity standards.
Capabilities like Bitsight Third-Party Vulnerability Detection & Response can streamline vulnerability identification, outreach to vendors to collaborate on mitigation efforts, and evidence sharing for quicker remediation when it matters most.
With automation taking care of routine tasks, you're freed from repetitive work to focus on what truly matters.
As a cybersecurity—and business—leader, time is your most precious resource. Automation is your key to unlocking a scalable Vender Risk Management (VRM) program, data-driven decisions, and strategic cybersecurity initiatives that will reduce risk and improve your security posture. In the relentless battle against cyber threats, automation empowers you to stay ahead of the curve and watch your TPRM program soar to new heights of efficiency and effectiveness.
Hear how current customers like Howard Hughes are leveraging Bitsight's Third-Party Risk Management solution to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of their program by: