What is a Third-Party Risk Assessment in Cybersecurity? | UpGuard

### Executive Summary This article explains how third-party risk assessments integrate into the seven-stage TPRM lifecycle, detailing onboarding due diligence, vendor classification, initial and periodic risk assessments, risk scoring, mitigation strategies, continuous monitoring, and offboarding. It reviews common categories of third-party risks (data breach, regulatory, information security, supply chain, operational, financial, legal, reputational) and highlights three main process challenges—poor scalability, poor visibility, and weak collaboration—offering platform-based and AI-assisted solutions to improve TPRM effectiveness.