Overview of VISO TRUST and Black Kite

At a high level, VISO TRUST and Black Kite address third-party cyber risk from fundamentally different directions.

VISO TRUST is an inside-out vendor risk management platform. It starts with what you need to know about a vendor: internal policies, regulatory requirements, contractual obligations, and business context. From there, VISO gathers structured evidence directly from vendors: questionnaires, documentation, attestations, and layers in monitoring and workflows to manage risk throughout the vendor lifecycle. The result is a policy-driven, auditable view of supplier risk that reflects how vendors actually operate internally.

Black Kite, by contrast, delivers an outside-in third-party cyber risk intelligence model. It continuously scans the public internet and external data sources for observable security signals tied to an organization’s attack surface. These signals are mapped to recognized compliance and risk frameworks and distilled into risk scores designed to help organizations rapidly evaluate supplier cyber risk without requiring vendor participation.

Key distinctions in the overview include:

  • VISO TRUST asks: Is this vendor meeting our internal security, privacy, and compliance expectations?
  • Black Kite asks: What measurable cyber risk does this organization present based on externally observable evidence?

Core Features and Capabilities

When assessing capabilities side by side, it’s important to examine how each platform helps organizations identify, measure, and remediate supplier risk.

VISO TRUST’s flagship features

Custom Questionnaires
Build and tailor assessments aligned to internal policy and external frameworks such as ISO 27001, NIST, SOC 2, or GDPR requirements.

Automated Workflows
Automates approvals, escalation paths, remediation tracking, and exception handling across the vendor lifecycle.

Dynamic Risk Rating
Risk ratings are derived from questionnaire responses, internal reviews, and integrated intelligence, reflecting both inherent risk and control maturity.

Continuous Monitoring
Integrates threat intelligence and breach monitoring feeds to alert teams when vendor risk posture changes.

Reporting & Dashboards
Provides customizable dashboards and reporting views to track vendor risk program performance and stakeholder insights.

Black Kite’s standout offerings

Cyber Risk Scoring
Continuous, evidence-based risk scoring across multiple technical risk categories, enabling rapid third-party risk assessment without vendor engagement.

Framework Mapping
Risk findings are mapped to standards such as NIST, ISO 27001, MITRE ATT&CK, and industry compliance frameworks to support governance and regulatory reporting.

Threat Intelligence Insights
Surfaces breach indicators, ransomware exposure, vulnerabilities, and supply chain risk signals are tied to an organization’s digital footprint.

Benchmarking & Peer Comparison
Allows organizations to compare vendors against industry peers or geographic cohorts to prioritize remediation.

Portfolio Risk View
Provides portfolio-level visibility into supplier risk, helping teams focus remediation efforts on the most critical third parties.

Conclusion

Choosing between VISO TRUST and Black Kite boils down to balance: turnkey ease and customizable risk frameworks versus continuous, AI-driven threat intelligence and modular flexibility. VISO TRUST shines in delivering a user-friendly, policy-aligned approach that brings human expertise to the table. Black Kite excels at feeding security operations teams real-time external risk signals.