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Modern businesses depend on third-party apps for everything from customer service and analytics to cloud storage and security. But every integration introduces a potential vulnerability, and vetting third-party apps before you connect them matters more than most teams realize.
35.5% of all recorded breaches in 2024 were linked to third-party vulnerabilities. The good news is that these risks can be managed. This piece covers the hidden dangers of third-party API integrations and a practical process for vetting third-party apps before adding one to your system.
Why Vetting Third-Party Apps Matters Now
Most businesses don’t build every technology component from scratch. Instead, they rely on third-party apps and APIs to manage everything from payments to customer support, analytics, email automation, and chatbots. The goal is to speed up development, cut costs, and get new features live faster than an in-house build ever could.
The Hidden Risks Behind Vetting Third-Party Apps
Security Risks
Every integration you add expands your attack surface. A vulnerability in a vendor’s code, or in one of their own dependencies, can become your problem the moment you connect it to your systems.
Privacy and Compliance Risks
Data shared with a third-party app is still your responsibility under most privacy regulations, even if the breach happens on the vendor’s side, not yours.
Operational and Financial Risks
An unreliable vendor, a sudden price change, or a shutdown can disrupt operations and lead to unauthorized access or costly losses if you haven’t planned for it.
A Practical Approach to Vetting Third-Party Apps
Before you connect any app, take a moment to give it a careful check-up. Use this process for vetting third-party apps to make sure each one is safe, secure, and ready to work for you.
- Check security credentials and certifications: look for ISO 27001, SOC 2, or NIST compliance, and ask for audit or penetration test reports
- Confirm data encryption in transit and at rest, using strong protocols like TLS 1.3 or higher
- Review contractual terms that allow you to audit security practices, request documentation, and enforce remediation timelines
- Know your data’s location and jurisdiction, and confirm it complies with local regulations
- Ask about failover and resilience: how the vendor handles downtime, redundancy, and data recovery
- Check dependencies and supply chain: get a list of the libraries the vendor uses, especially open-source ones, and assess them for known vulnerabilities
Vendor risk doesn’t stop at the app itself — it extends to everyone in that vendor’s own supply chain. Our guide on preventing cloud misconfiguration covers a closely related risk that often shows up alongside poorly vetted integrations.
Make Vetting Third-Party Apps an Ongoing Process
No technology is ever completely risk-free, but the right safeguards help you manage what’s left. Treat vetting third-party apps as an ongoing process rather than a one-time task: continuous monitoring, regular reassessments, and well-defined safety controls all matter more than a single approval at signup.
If you’re already using several connected apps, our piece on the smarter way to vet your SaaS integrations is a useful next step, and our guide to building a data retention policy helps you decide how long vendor-shared data should actually stick around.
A quick internal policy makes this easier to stick with: require a short vetting checklist sign-off before any new app gets connected to company data, no matter how small the integration seems. It takes minutes and catches problems long before they become incidents.
It also helps to assign clear ownership internally. Someone on your team, whether that’s IT, a compliance lead, or an outside partner, should be responsible for maintaining the list of connected apps, tracking which ones still need review, and retiring integrations nobody uses anymore. Vetting third-party apps only works as a habit if someone actually owns the process.
Start Vetting Third-Party Apps the Right Way
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Featured Image Credit: Pixabay
Republished with Permission from The Technology Press.