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Optimized Third-Party Cyber Risk Management Programs

Manage risk, not spreadsheets. Identify and remediate cybersecurity risks inherent in third-party relationships, helping achieve compliance with regulations such as NYDFS, FARS, GDPR, etc.

Manage Third-party Cyber Risk With Confidence, Context and Action

Third parties are essential to modern business, but they also expand your cyber risk surface. Vendors, suppliers, cloud providers, managed service providers, professional services firms and other business partners may access sensitive data, connect to critical systems or support essential operations. When one of those third parties experiences a cyber incident, your organization may still face the operational, regulatory, financial and reputational consequences.

Kroll helps organizations identify, assess, monitor and reduce third-party cyber risk through a flexible combination of advisory expertise, managed services, cyber assessment capabilities, risk monitoring and technology-enabled workflows.

Built on our deep experience in cyber risk, incident response, threat intelligence, compliance and resilience, our third-party risk management (TPRM) approach helps organizations move beyond point-in-time questionnaires and spreadsheet-driven tracking toward a more defensible, intelligence-led third-party cyber risk management program.

A Lifecycle Approach to Third-Party Cyber Risk

Kroll helps organizations manage third-party cyber risk across the full lifecycle, from initial program design through ongoing monitoring and remediation.

Program Strategy and Design

Kroll helps organizations establish or enhance the governance, operating model, risk methodology, assessment approach and reporting structure needed to support a practical, scalable and defensible third-party cyber risk management program.

Vendor Inventory and Risk Tiering

Kroll helps organizations identify and categorize third parties based on business criticality, data access, system connectivity, operational dependency, regulatory relevance and inherent cyber risk, helping focus on the relationships that create the greatest potential exposure.

Assessment and Due Diligence

Kroll conducts cybersecurity assessments of third parties to ascertain if they have appropriate controls to protect sensitive data, maintain operational resilience and respond to cyber threats. Assessments can be aligned to frameworks including NIST CSF, ISO 27001, SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR and more.

Findings, Remediation and Risk Acceptance

Kroll translates assessment results into clear findings, prioritized remediation actions, compensating control considerations and business-ready reporting. Findings are designed to be actionable, not merely descriptive.

Trigger-Based Review and Monitoring

Third-party cyber risk changes over time. Kroll helps clients monitor changes in vendor risk posture, external exposure, potential compromise, credential leakage, cyber events, threat intelligence, operational disruption and other changes that may warrant reassessment.

Managed Services and Program Operations

When additional capacity is required, Kroll can operate third-party cyber risk management programs as a managed service, supporting vendor intake, assessments, ongoing management and reporting.

 

Third-Party Cyber Risk Program Advisory

Kroll helps organizations design, enhance and operationalize third-party cyber risk programs that are scalable, risk-based and aligned to business needs.

Our advisory services support organizations that are building a new program, improving an existing program, preparing for regulatory scrutiny, integrating new technology or scaling assessment activities across a large vendor population.

Services may include:

  • TPRM program maturity and gap assessments
  • Policy, standard and procedure development
  • Vendor tiering and inherent risk methodology
  • Assessment model design
  • Risk acceptance and exception workflows
  • Board, executive and risk committee reporting
  • Regulatory alignment and examination readiness
  • Operating model design and stakeholder workflow development

Vendor Cybersecurity Assessments

Kroll provides cybersecurity assessments that help clients evaluate the risk presented by third parties, including vendors, suppliers, service providers, cloud platforms and other external partners.

Assessments can be tailored based on the vendor’s criticality, data access, system connectivity, regulatory relevance and risk profile. Kroll can perform streamlined assessments for lower-risk vendors and deeper control validation for critical or high-risk relationships.

Assessment activities may include:

  • Cybersecurity questionnaire review
  • Policy and procedure review
  • Evidence validation
  • Vendor interviews
  • Control design and operating effectiveness review
  • Cloud and SaaS security review
  • Incident response and resilience review
  • Data protection and privacy-oriented review
  • Targeted penetration testing or vulnerability testing
  • Framework and regulatory mapping

Managed Third-Party Cyber Risk Services

Kroll can help clients operate third-party cyber risk management activities as an extension of their internal team.

This managed service model is designed for organizations that need to assess more vendors, reduce backlogs, improve process consistency, strengthen reporting or add experienced cyber risk capacity without building a larger internal function.

Managed service activities may include:

  • Vendor intake and risk tiering support
  • Assessment campaign management
  • Vendor outreach and follow-up
  • Questionnaire and evidence review
  • Findings development and quality control
  • Remediation tracking
  • Risk acceptance workflow support
  • Dashboarding and recurring reporting
  • Support for governance meetings and stakeholder updates
  • Continuous improvement of assessment templates and workflows

Continuous Monitoring and External Risk Intelligence

Questionnaires provide valuable insight, but they are only one part of third-party cyber risk management. Kroll helps clients incorporate external risk intelligence and ongoing monitoring into their TPRM programs.

Monitoring can help identify emerging risks such as credential exposure, dark web activity, external attack surface weaknesses, public breach reports, vendor incidents, operational disruption or changes in a vendor’s risk profile.

Monitoring activities may include:

  • Dark web and credential exposure monitoring
  • External attack surface visibility
  • Threat intelligence and event-driven alerts
  • Vendor breach and incident tracking
  • Trigger-based reassessments
  • Critical vendor watchlists
  • Executive and operational reporting

Remediation Support and Risk Reduction

Kroll helps clients turn third-party risk findings into practical remediation actions.

Our teams provide clear, prioritized guidance that helps clients and vendors understand the significance of identified gaps, the expected remediation path and the potential risk of delayed action. Kroll can also help validate completed remediation and document risk- acceptance decisions where appropriate.

Remediation support may include:

  • Prioritized remediation roadmaps
  • Vendor remediation guidance
  • Control improvement recommendations
  • Compensating control analysis
  • Risk acceptance documentation
  • Remediation validation
  • Reporting for risk committees and business owners

Technology-Enabled, Advisor-Led

Kroll is technology-agnostic and can work within a client’s existing governance, TPRM or vendor management platform. Where clients need additional capability, Kroll can help deploy, configure or operate fit-for-purpose technology to support scalable third-party cyber risk management.

Kroll’s TPRM services can incorporate leading third-party risk and supply chain intelligence platforms, including Panorays and Interos, depending on client needs, existing technology investments and program objectives.

Panorays can support scalable vendor cyber risk assessment, automated questionnaires, external attack surface insights, vendor engagement and continuous monitoring workflows.

Interos can support broader supplier ecosystem visibility, relationship mapping, operational resilience insights, concentration risk analysis and supply chain risk intelligence.

Technology provides scale and visibility. Kroll provides the cyber risk expertise, context and judgment needed to interpret outputs, validate risk, prioritize remediation and support defensible business decisions.

Why Kroll

Kroll brings together cyber risk advisory, incident response, threat intelligence, regulatory knowledge, technical assessment and managed services experience to help organizations address third-party cyber risk in a practical and defensible way.

Clients work with Kroll to gain:

  • Practitioner-led cyber risk and TPRM expertise
  • Experience supporting complex, regulated environments
  • Flexible advisory, assessment and managed service models
  • Risk-based prioritization rather than check-the-box scoring
  • Technology-enabled workflows with expert interpretation
  • Practical remediation guidance and validation
  • Executive-ready reporting and defensible documentation
  • Support across strategy, execution, monitoring and sustainment

Strengthen Your Third-Party Cyber Risk Program

Whether you are building a third-party cyber risk program, scaling vendor assessments, validating critical vendors, implementing continuous monitoring or looking for managed service support, Kroll can help you identify what matters most and take practical action.

Contact Kroll to discuss your third-party cyber risk management needs.

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