Third-Party Risk Management for Charities: Securing Your Technology Suppliers
A charity's security is only as strong as the weakest link in its technology supply chain. When a major charity CRM provider is ransomed, every charity using it is affected. When an online fundraising platform suffers a breach, donor data from hundreds of charities is exposed. Managing third-party risk is not just a contractual box-ticking exercise — it is the practical recognition that your data security depends partly on decisions made by suppliers you cannot directly control.
The majority of significant charity data breaches in 2023 involved a third-party technology supplier — making supplier security the most underaddressed risk in charity cybersecurity.
Proportionate Supplier Security for Charities
A proportionate charity supplier security programme: lists all technology suppliers that process charity data (CRM, case management, fundraising platform, payroll, email, cloud storage, HR systems); classifies by risk (Tier 1: processes sensitive beneficiary or donor data, has direct system access; Tier 2: processes operational data, no beneficiary or donor data; Tier 3: no data access); requires Cyber Essentials certification or equivalent from Tier 1 suppliers; includes a data processing agreement (DPA) with all data processors — many will have a standard DPA on their website; includes a breach notification requirement in all supplier contracts (usually achieved through DPA clauses); and reviews Tier 1 suppliers annually. This programme is proportionate for most charities and does not require significant internal resource to maintain.
Panorays for Charity Supplier Security Monitoring
Panorays, deployed by Kyanite Blue, provides automated continuous security assessment of technology suppliers based on their external digital footprint. For charities, Panorays delivers: a risk score for each technology supplier based on their internet-facing security posture; alerts when supplier security posture deteriorates (indicating emerging risk before it becomes an incident); evidence of ongoing supplier security monitoring for GDPR compliance purposes (demonstrating due diligence in supplier oversight); and a supplier risk dashboard that can be presented to trustees as part of governance reporting. Panorays is available at charity rates through Kyanite Blue — providing a level of supplier security visibility that was previously only achievable by large organisations with dedicated security teams.
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