Third-party risk management is the practice of evaluating the security, privacy, and trustworthiness of vendors, cloud services, APIs, libraries, and other external components before and during use. In cyber security, it recognizes that an organization’s risk does not stop at its own network; every supplier can become a path for data exposure, service disruption, or code compromise.
This matters especially in AI-heavy environments, where model hosting platforms, data providers, plugins, and automation tools may all have access to sensitive information or privileged actions. Good third-party risk management includes reviewing contracts, access controls, security attestations, patching practices, and incident-response obligations. Defenders also monitor supplier behavior, limit permissions, and isolate dependencies so a compromise does not spread. Attackers often target weaker partners or shared software components because they are easier entry points than well-defended internal systems.