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24/7 Third Party and Vendor Incident Response

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Third Party And Vendor Incident Response

24/7 Emergency Hotline for third party vendor incident response: 1 (833) 562-5273

If the incident is active: contain access first, preserve audit logs, and stop data movement before the vendor or attacker can escalate. Lockard Security can help with third party vendor incident response, evidence preservation, and recovery while supporting legal, insurance, and compliance needs.

Third party vendor incident response is the structured process of containing risk tied to a vendor, supplier, contractor, MSP, or SaaS provider. These incidents often involve exposed credentials, remote access tooling, API keys, misconfigurations, or shared data flows. The goal is to reduce impact quickly, determine what data or systems were affected, and restore trusted access.

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What A Third Party Vendor Incident Is

Third party and vendor incident response showing investigation of a vendor breach and supply chain security incident
Third party and vendor incident response investigations often involve shared access, vendor systems, and supply chain exposure.

A third party incident happens when risk enters your environment through a vendor relationship or shared system. This can include a compromised vendor account, a breach at the vendor that exposes your data, abuse of a remote management tool, or a misconfiguration in a SaaS tenant. These events can be complex because evidence, logs, and control are often split across multiple organizations.

Key idea: your containment actions should focus on your control plane first. Identity, remote access, API keys, integrations, and network paths.

Common Third Party And Vendor Breach Scenarios

Vendor credentials abused

Stolen vendor usernames, passwords, or session tokens used to access VPN, portals, or support systems.

Remote tooling misuse

RMM tools, remote support agents, or jump boxes used outside approved scope or change windows.

SaaS or integration compromise

OAuth grants, API tokens, SSO misconfigurations, or compromised vendor integrations that allow data access.

Data exposure at the vendor

Vendor breach results in customer data leakage, stolen exports, or unauthorized access to shared repositories.

Supply chain infection

Compromised software updates, signed installers, malicious packages, or poisoned dependencies delivered through trusted channels.

Third party access beyond scope

Vendors with broad permissions, shared admin accounts, or unclear boundaries that expand blast radius during an incident.

Typical Timeline In Vendor Incidents

Vendor incidents tend to unfold in phases. The fastest wins come from cutting off risky access paths and preserving audit logs early.

Phase 1: Detection

Suspicious access alerts, anomalous login patterns, unexpected configuration changes, or vendor breach notification.

Phase 2: Containment

Disable vendor accounts, revoke sessions, rotate keys, restrict integrations, and limit network paths.

Phase 3: Investigation

Build a timeline across identity logs, audit trails, endpoint telemetry, and vendor provided evidence.

Phase 4: Recovery

Restore trusted access, correct scope, implement monitoring, and validate no remaining persistence or unauthorized access.

Practical tip: vendor portals and audit logs often have short retention. Preserve them early, before they roll over.

High-Signal Indicators To Watch For

Third party vendor incident response works best when you correlate identity logs, admin actions, and data movement in time. Below are high-signal indicators that repeatedly show up in real cases.

Identity and access indicators

  • New vendor accounts, new SSO grants, or unexpected role changes
  • Suspicious sign-ins, impossible travel, new devices, or unusual IP ranges
  • New OAuth app grants, API token creation, or permission escalations
  • Support portal access outside approved maintenance windows

Data movement indicators

  • Bulk exports from SaaS platforms, ticketing systems, CRM, HR, or finance tools
  • Unusual external sharing links, mass downloads, or large outbound uploads
  • Repeated compression activity and archive creation near sensitive repositories

Admin and configuration indicators

  • Logging disabled or reduced retention settings
  • Firewall rule changes, allowlist additions, or new remote access paths
  • Creation of new service accounts, secrets, or automation identities

Our Third Party Vendor Incident Response Process

Lockard Security uses a structured process to contain risk quickly, preserve evidence, and produce clear findings for stakeholders. We prioritize actions that restore control without destroying audit trails needed by legal, insurance, or regulators.

1) Rapid triage and containment

Identify active access paths, revoke sessions, disable accounts, and reduce integration scope.

2) Evidence preservation

Preserve identity logs, SaaS audit logs, vendor portal logs, and key timestamps before retention windows expire.

3) Investigation and scoping

Determine entry vector, impacted systems, data exposure risk, and whether attackers pivoted into internal environments.

4) Recovery and trust restoration

Rotate secrets, harden access controls, re-establish least privilege, and confirm monitoring coverage.

5) Reporting and stakeholder support

Deliver a clear timeline, findings, and an actionable remediation roadmap for leadership, legal, and compliance.

6) Prevention roadmap

Improve vendor access governance, logging retention, segmentation, and continuous monitoring for third party risk.

Working With Vendors, Legal, And Insurance

Vendor incidents often require careful coordination. We help you request the right evidence from the vendor, document containment actions, and preserve the timeline needed for insurance claims, customer notifications, and regulatory reporting.

  • Evidence request checklist and log preservation guidance for vendors
  • Containment steps that reduce risk without breaking business operations
  • Clear documentation of decisions, timestamps, and corrective actions
  • Support for communications with leadership and affected stakeholders
Common pitfall: treating a vendor incident as “their problem.” If your credentials, integrations, or data are involved, you still need internal containment and scoping.

Hardening Checklist For Third Party Risk

Third party incidents are reduced by tightening access scope, improving visibility, and forcing separation between vendor and internal control planes.

Vendor access controls

  • Use dedicated vendor accounts, not shared credentials
  • Enforce MFA and conditional access for all vendor access paths
  • Limit vendor access to specific systems, time windows, and approved roles
  • Use just-in-time access where possible

Logging and monitoring

  • Centralize SaaS and IdP audit logs and increase retention
  • Alert on role changes, API token creation, and privileged actions
  • Track bulk downloads, external sharing, and unusual exports

Segmentation and blast radius reduction

  • Segment vendor remote access from core identity, backups, and admin systems
  • Separate credentials and admin tooling between vendor and internal teams
  • Review integrations and remove unused apps, tokens, and connectors
Want a practical plan: we can convert this checklist into a prioritized third party risk roadmap aligned to your tools and staffing.

Third Party Vendor Incident Response FAQ

Do we need to shut off the vendor immediately?

Not always, but you should reduce access quickly. We usually start with session revocation, scoped permission reduction, key rotation, and temporary network restrictions while preserving logs and maintaining critical operations.

What evidence should we request from the vendor?

Request audit logs, admin action logs, authentication logs, key timestamps, scope details, affected tenants, and remediation actions taken. We can provide a checklist tailored to the vendor type.

How fast can you help?

If the incident is active, call the hotline. We can guide containment immediately while starting evidence preservation and scoping.

24/7 Third Party And Vendor Incident Response Help

If you suspect a vendor breach, compromised third party access, or exposed customer data through a supplier relationship, contact us immediately. Faster containment reduces exposure, downtime, and cost.

24/7 Emergency Hotline: 1 (833) 562-5273
Email: [email protected]
Request Vendor Incident Response

If you are still in the “suspicious activity” stage, we can help confirm whether you are seeing vendor abuse indicators and prevent escalation.