Supplier governance is the process of setting security requirements for vendors, tracking what they are allowed to access, and continuously monitoring the risk created by outsourced services. It covers contracts, due diligence, access control, audit rights, patching expectations, incident reporting, and exit plans for when a supplier relationship ends.
It matters because many attacks target the weakest link in a supply chain rather than the main organization. A poorly governed supplier may have excessive privileges, weak authentication, or insecure remote access that attackers can abuse to reach customer systems. Strong supplier governance reduces that exposure by limiting trust, checking compliance, and ensuring the organization can replace, isolate, or recover from a vendor without losing control of critical operations.