Vanta vs Black Kite

Minimizing the amount of time and effort in learning to use a new solution is a critical aspect of delivering on any value proposition.

• Vanta: The Vanta platform offers a simple view of risk visibility and compliance with audit standards. However, the learning curve can be steep with very little customer support.

• Black Kite: Interface that grades risk categories from A to F.‍

• UpGuard: High-level summation of risk with the ability to drill down into precise technical details. Each risk is prioritized based on extensive research conducted by the in-house security team, and where possible remediation and protection suggestions are provided.

Vanta, Black Kite, and UpGuard help organizations stay informed about their vendors’ information security risks as part of third-party risk management (TPRM) and vendor due diligence programs.

• Vanta: Vanta's capabilities are heavily focused on providing security certification and framework compliance services, such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, or HIPAA. They also offer simple risk management services but do not incorporate data leaks, security ratings, or risk scoring for external or internal attack surfaces into their assessment and security monitoring.

• Black Kite: Bases its third-party risk mitigation strategies on an evaluation of each third-party vendor's security posture, a metric quantified with a security ratings feature known as Cyber Risk Scorecard.

• UpGuard: Offers real-time visibility into any third-party vendor’s risk posture & security rating along with total automation for managing vendor due diligence and remediation programs.

The main reason organizations invest in security tools is to prevent incidents from happening in the first place.

A solution's ability to prevent data breaches and other cyber attacks before they happen should be front of mind when choosing a security platform.

Vanta: Vanta does not provide external scanning or continuous monitoring for digital footprints to detect external or internal threats. Risk assessments and questionnaires are automated to provide some risk visibility but no threat intelligence or attack surface management is offered.

Black Kite: Performs non-intrusive checks including passive DNS, attack surface detection, passive vulnerability scanning, DNS health, SSL/TLS strength, and email security, as well as asset reputation, credential compromises, hacktivist shares, social media monitoring, dark web search, cloud delivery network security, fraudulent apps, and DDoS detection. They do not, however, provide real transparency into the efficacy of these checks.

UpGuard: UpGuard scans the digital footprints of organizations and their vendors to ensure all breach vectors are covered and secured. Threats such as phishing, ransomware, MitM attacks, vulnerabilities, email spoofing, typosquatted domains, network security, DNS issues, and more are part of 70+ attack vectors that are monitored consistently. In addition, UpGuard scans millions of pages daily to quickly detect data leaks so organizations can secure their data exposures.

Keeping informed on product updates and the latest cyber security developments is paramount, with new vulnerabilities and cyber threats emerging daily.

Customers need up-to-date resources and relevant insights to stay ahead of the curve and protect their organizations from emerging cyber risks.

The frequency of publication and presence of community engagement is a key indicator of a company’s mission, focus, and investment in its users.

Vanta, Black Kite, and UpGuard offer comprehensive online resources to educate and inform customers.

Vanta: Offers a Vanta Academy, along with a regularly updated blog, webinar series, various eBooks, and help education resources.‍

Black Kite: Company and product blog.

UpGuard: UpGuard Summit brings together a community of security leaders from leading companies, explores the future of security, and helps businesses stay secure.

The UpGuard cybersecurity and risk management blog is updated four times a week and the breach research blog has uncovered and secured some of the largest data breaches. 

Keeping customers and the cybersecurity community informed on the latest cyber security developments is paramount, with new vulnerabilities and threats emerging daily. 

Technology is always changing. New vulnerabilities are added to CVE on a daily basis, and attackers are constantly finding new zero-day exploits.

The speed at which a security platform can incorporate changes determines how well it can respond to new threats and customer requests.

Additionally, they should continue to update, adjust, and improve their threat detection methodology to reflect changes to the threat landscape.

• Vanta: Vanta’s current release rate cycles are not publicly available. Vanta does release monthly product updates through their company website.

• Black Kite: The release model for Black Kite is unknown.

• UpGuard: UpGuard has adopted DevOps principles internally to develop, test, and release software continuously, ensuring fast, consistent, and safe releases. UpGuard has a regular release rate every two weeks, with all features, changes, and improvements listed under UpGuard Release Notes.

Cyber risk platforms can be expensive and the common use of opaque pricing policies often takes power away from the purchaser. With most services offering tiered licensing options and add-ons, finding a solution that fits your needs and budget can prove more difficult without transparent pricing.

• Vanta: Vanta pricing has not been released publicly. User reviews note that Vanta pricing models have been quickly pricing them out of the competition.

• Black Kite: Public pricing information is not available.

• UpGuard: UpGuard has a fully transparent and publicly accessible pricing model which you can view here. If you have any questions, please email sales@upguard.com.

APIs are useful for technical staff, but not all information security teams have access to developers. In this situation, standard third-party integrations are an essential part of decision-making.  

Vanta, Black Kite, and UpGuard offer APIs.

• ‍Vanta: Vanta uses Connectors API to pull security information‍ and allow for compliance automation.

• Black Kite: Offers a standard API to pull data.  

• UpGuard: Offers a standard API to pull data from UpGuard’s platform into other enterprise applications.

Accessing the information in a cyber risk product outside of its graphical interface is important for integrated business strategies and consolidating data to a preferred system.

Vanta, Black Kite, and UpGuard offer integrations into other platforms.

• Vanta: Offers integrations with 100+ third-party services, including AWS and GitHub.

• Black Kite: Integrates with Supply Wisdom and VendorInsight.

• UpGuard: Integrates with Zapier to enable connections to 3,000+ apps; GRC platforms, ticketing systems like JIRA; VRM solutions like ServiceNow, and more.

• Vanta: Major customers include Quora, Autodesk, Gusto, Shortcut, and Chili Piper.

• Black Kite: Customers include Polk & Wardwell, LLP, a Fortune 500 retailer, and an OTC financial institution.‍

• UpGuard: Major customers include Accenture, New York Stock Exchange, Tech Mahindra, IAG, Hopin, NSW Government, and Morningstar.

• Vanta: Does not provide security ratings.

• Black Kite: Provides a risk rating from A to F, like a report card.

• UpGuard: Security rating scale of 0-950, ranked as A: 801-950, B: 601-800, C: 401-600, D: 201-400, F: 0-200. You can request your free security rating by clicking here.