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12/06/2026 12:42 am
TL;DR: Third-party security rises or falls on how well organisations control external access, monitor vendor behaviour, and enforce contract-backed security requirements, according to Zluri's analysis of vendor, operational, compliance, reputational, financial, and strategic risk. The real issue is not vendor count, but whether access, oversight, and offboarding are governed as one lifecycle.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Zluri: Security & Compliance 6 Strategies To Improve Third-Party Security
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams govern third-party access across vendors and contractors?
A: Security teams should govern third-party access as a lifecycle, not a one-time approval.
Q: Why do third-party relationships create identity and access risk?
A: Third-party relationships create identity risk because external parties often receive real credentials or delegated access into sensitive systems.
Q: What do security teams get wrong about vendor due diligence?
A: Teams often treat due diligence as a paperwork exercise instead of an access control input.
Practitioner guidance
- Inventory every third-party identity Create a complete register of vendors, contractors, and integrations with explicit ownership, access scope, and business purpose.
- Bind contracts to security evidence Require security controls, compliance evidence, incident reporting duties, and audit rights before granting access.
- Automate offboarding across all access paths Remove vendor access when the task ends, the contract changes, or the relationship terminates.
What's in the full article
Zluri's full blog post covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- A step-by-step third-party risk assessment workflow for vendor onboarding and review
- Detailed contract clauses for security obligations, incident reporting, and audit rights
- Practical examples of vendor access deprovisioning and renewal tracking
- Operational guidance on monitoring vendor activity and flagging unusual access patterns
👉 Read Zluri's analysis of third-party security strategies and vendor access risk →
Third-party security risks: what IAM teams need to control?
Explore further
12/06/2026 10:08 am
Third-party security is identity governance wearing a supplier badge. The article is right to treat vendor risk as more than a procurement exercise, because external access is still identity, regardless of whether the subject is a contractor, partner, or service provider. Once a third party can authenticate, the organisation has to govern access scope, assurance, monitoring, and offboarding as one lifecycle. Practitioners should stop separating vendor management from IAM.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 85% of organisations lack full visibility into third-party vendors connected via OAuth apps, according to The State of Non-Human Identity Security.
- Only 1.5 out of 10 organisations are highly confident in their ability to secure NHIs, compared to nearly 1 in 4 for securing human identities, according to Astrix Security & CSA.
A question worth separating out:
Q: What is the difference between vendor risk management and vendor access governance?
A: Vendor risk management evaluates the third party's overall security, compliance, and operational profile. Vendor access governance controls what that party can actually do in your environment, for how long, and under what conditions. Both matter, but access governance is the part that prevents residual credentials from becoming a live security problem.
👉 Read our full editorial: Third-party security governance is really access governance
