The next big hit to hit your customers probably won’t come from within their walls. It will come through a vendor they trust, a SaaS tool their finance team has signed off on, or a subcontractor no one in IT knows. It is a new area of attack, and many organizations are not well prepared.
Cynomi’s new guide, Securing the Modern Perimeter: Elevating Third-Party Risk Management, makes the TPRM case a non-compliance rule. It’s a frontline security challenge and a clear growth opportunity for MSPs and MSSPs ahead of it.
Modern Space Expanded
For decades, cybersecurity policy revolved around a defined area. Firewalls, endpoint controls, and information management systems were used to protect assets within the known boundary.
That limit has been removed.
Today, customer data resides in third-party SaaS applications, flows through vendor APIs, and is processed by subcontractors that internal IT teams may not be aware of. Protection no longer stops at your property’s systems. It extends across an interconnected ecosystem of external providers, and the responsibilities that come with it extend there as well.
The 2025 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report found that third parties are involved in 30% of data breaches. IBM’s 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report puts the average cost of third-party breach remediation at $4.91 million. Third-party exposure has become an integral part of modern business operations, not the bottom line.
For enthusiastic service providers, this change presents a huge opportunity. Organizations facing growing third-party threats are looking for strategic partners who can contain, remediate, and continue to manage the entire lifecycle of third-party threats. Service providers that enter the segment can introduce new services, provide high-quality communications, and prove themselves to be the core of their clients’ security and compliance programs.
From the check box to Core Risk Function
The traditional approach to marketers’ risk management relied on annual questionnaires, spreadsheets, and periodic follow-up emails. It was never good enough, and it costs a lot of money now.
Regulatory initiatives such as CMMC, NIS2, and DORA have raised the bar significantly. Compliance now requires demonstrated, ongoing monitoring of third-party systems, not a snapshot of the past twelve months. Boards are asking tough questions about broker exposure. Cyber insurers are assessing supply chain integrity before writing policies. And consumers who watch competitors accept the fallout from seller violations understand that “it wasn’t our system” doesn’t limit their credit.
The market is responding accordingly. The global budget of TPRM is set to grow from $8.3 billion in 2024 to $18.7 billion in 2030. Organizations are taking care of vendors as a government function, according to incident response or information management, because the costs of ignoring it are already very high.
For service providers, that budget allocation is a clear signal. Clients are increasingly looking for potential partners and managing vendor oversight as a defined, ongoing service.
Adding TPRM Is Where Many Providers Stuck
Most MSPs and MSSPs recognize this opportunity. The hesitancy comes down to supply, and in particular how much TPRM can be done.
Traditional vendor testing relies on separate workflows and manual testing. Custom assessments must be submitted, tracked, and explained, and risk must be apportioned against each client’s specific obligations. This work often falls to senior consultants, making it expensive and difficult to delegate.
Multiplying these efforts across a customer portfolio with different vendor ecosystems, compliance requirements, and risk tolerances can be challenging. This is why many providers offer TPRM as a one-off project rather than a regularly managed service.
But that’s where the opportunity lies. Cynomy of Maintaining a modern Perimeter guide explains how a structured, technology-enhanced TPRM can transform from bespoke engagement to a repeatable, high-quality service line that strengthens customer retention, drives sales, and positions service providers as key partners in their customers’ security programs.
Turning TPRM into a Revenue Engine
Third party risk is a non-material conversation starter.
Every new salesperson who enters a customer base creates a potentially dangerous conversation. Regulatory updates are a natural reason to revisit vendor programs, and every third-party data breach insures trouble. TPRM, done right, keeps service providers involved in the customer’s strategy rather than being given active support, and that situation completely changes the nature of the relationship.
Providers who build formal TPRM capabilities find that it opens doors to:
- Extensive security consultancy work
- High standards of retention
- Strong customer relationships built on true business impact
- Diversification in the crowdsourced services market
- Reliable third-party risk management, showing maturity to prospective customers
The Bottom Line
Third party risk is not limited. The ecosystem of vendors your customers rely on will continue to grow more complex, with multiple SaaS platforms, AI-driven tools, subcontractors, and heightened regulatory scrutiny. Organizations that manage this exposure well will have a clear advantage in terms of consistency and compliance.
Building a streamlined, lightweight TPRM system that provides consistent awareness across your portfolio creates more leverage than adding volume or putting together bespoke programs from scratch for each client. The tools you build once pay rewards to each account.
Cynomi’s Modern Securing Perimeter: The Rise of Third-Party Risk Management is a useful starting point. It covers the full spectrum of modern third-party risk, what a state-of-the-art TPRM program looks like, and how service providers can build and measure this capability without sacrificing exceptions.
Learn how Cynomi helps MSPs and MSSPs implement TPRM at scale, or request a demo to check how it fits your service model.
#ThirdParty #Risk #Biggest #Gap #Consumer #Protection #Position