Vendors who develop and sell software, hardware, and infrastructure have a responsibility to notify your company about IT environment incidents, events, and failures. Incident response notifications should allow for open communication when a security threat or potential threat takes place, enabling you to take swift action and protect your data assets.

Unfortunately, not all vendors abide by these principles. Some companies send notifications long after an event has happened; others don't communicate at all. That's why it's critical to take matters into your own hands and evaluate existing and future vendors working with your organization. It's your data that's potentially at risk, after all.

What are incident response notifications?

A vendor might send an incident response notification after identifying an issue that poses a risk to its product.

Problems associated with incident response notifications 

Not receiving any incident response notifications — even if those alerts just tell you that a vendor is installing a security patch or fixing a harmless bug — can mean the vendor doesn't care about security as much as you do.

Why you need a vendor risk management platform

Using a vendor risk assessment solution like Privva can improve security in your organization without relying on incident response notifications. Privva automates vendor security risk assessment using a simple two-step process:

1. It catalogs existing vendors working with your organization by using your current assessment or creating a custom solution based on your business requirements.

2. It evaluates future vendors before these companies can even access your sensitive data.  

Privva is a single platform that lets you:

· Create proprietary assessments

· Assign tasks to vendors

· Compare vendors against industry standards

· Manage and review vendors

Final word

Incident response notifications can be invaluable for detecting threats that might impact your business. However, many vendors don't communicate security information properly (if at all), leaving your organization at risk of cybercrime. Using a vendor risk assessment tool alongside these notifications can significantly improve security.

Privva is the vendor assessment solution that catalogs existing vendors and evaluates future vendors based on risk. Contact us now.