Many organizations today rely heavily on third-party vendors for IT, logistics, software, and even data handling. While outsourcing accelerates business operations, it also introduces a hidden risk—vendor access to sensitive data and systems.
These external relationships can expand your attack surface significantly. Even if your own environment is well-guarded, an unsecured vendor system can serve as a backdoor for bad actors. This is especially critical when working with government contracts or handling Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI).
To mitigate this risk, businesses are turning to access controls and secure segmentation strategies that keep sensitive operations walled off from everyday systems. For example, isolating CUI in a CMMC enclave allows contractors to grant vendors access only to the parts of the system they need—without compromising compliance or exposing critical information.
Vendor risk management isn’t just about trust—it’s about architecture. The more clearly you define where sensitive data lives and who can reach it, the lower your chances of a costly breach.