Vendor Tiering Best Practices in 2023 | UpGuard

This report outlines how vendor tiering enhances third-party risk management by categorizing vendors by criticality to prioritize assessments and remediation, detailing both questionnaire-based and manual approaches, and emphasizing risk analysis that considers inherent and residual risk. It recommends best practices such as leveraging security ratings, mapping vendor responses to established frameworks (e.g., ISO 27001, NIST CSF, PCI DSS, GDPR, DORA), setting clear expectations and SLAs with vendors, and continuously monitoring the third-party attack surface. The document highlights UpGuard’s platform features that automate vendor classification, streamline remediation planning, and support ongoing monitoring to improve VRM efficiency.