Third-Party Risk Management
Assess and monitor security, privacy, resilience, and concentration risk across the supplier lifecycle.
On this page · 4 sections
Applicability & intent
Third-party risk begins before contracting and continues through onboarding, change, monitoring, incident coordination, renewal, and termination. Criticality determines depth.
- Document why third-party risk management applies, what is in scope, and who is accountable.
- Translate obligations into owned, testable outcomes with proportionate evidence.
- Track exceptions, residual risk, changes, and corrective actions through governance review.
Governance lifecycle
- 01
Confirm scope, context, interested parties, legal or contractual basis, and authoritative sources.
- 02
Identify desired outcomes, owners, dependencies, existing controls, and evidence sources.
- 03
Assess design and operating effectiveness using representative, time-bound evidence.
- 04
Record gaps, risk, interim protections, target dates, and approval decisions.
- 05
Verify remediation, report residual risk, and schedule reassessment when context changes.
Evidence & assurance
| Evidence family | Assurance question |
|---|---|
| supplier inventory and criticality | Does governance establish accountable direction? |
| due diligence and contract requirements | Does the process operate consistently? |
| monitoring, incidents, and offboarding evidence | Can the claimed outcome be independently verified? |
Evidence should be attributable, current, protected, reproducible, and linked to an accountable owner. A document alone does not demonstrate that a control operates effectively.
Readiness decisions
- Tier suppliers by business and data impact.
- Validate material claims with proportionate evidence.
- Include breach, deletion, subcontractor, and exit obligations.