As the holiday season approaches and teams prepare for well-deserved time off, there's one gift you can give your organization that keeps on giving: a clean vendor risk posture heading into 2026.
The end of the year is the perfect time for vendor housekeeping. IT staffing drops, threat actors ramp up activity, and January brings a flood of contract renewals. Use these 12 days to wrap up loose ends and unwrap a more secure new year.
Day 1: Audit Your Vendor Inventory 🎁
How many vendors do you actually have? If you're like most organizations, the answer is: more than you think.
The average enterprise uses 130+ SaaS applications, but IT typically only knows about 40% of them. The rest? Shadow IT and Shadow AI tools quietly accumulating in the background.
- Export vendor lists from finance (AP records), SSO providers, and OAuth integrations
- Cross-reference with your official vendor registry
- Identify any gaps or unknown applications
Day 2: Review Access Permissions 🔑
OAuth permissions granted to third-party apps tend to accumulate like ornaments on a tree. Some are beautiful and useful. Others are outdated and potentially dangerous.
- Review OAuth grants in Google Workspace and Microsoft 365
- Identify employees who've left but still have vendor access in their name
- Flag over-permissioned service accounts
Day 3: Check Contract Renewals 📋
January is peak renewal season, and auto-renewals are the Grinch of procurement. They steal your negotiating power and lock you into another year before you've had time to evaluate.
Most enterprise SaaS contracts auto-renew 30-60 days before the term ends. Check your Q1 renewals NOW or lose your opportunity to renegotiate or cancel.
Day 4: Verify Vendor SOC 2 Reports 🛡️
SOC 2 reports aren't forever. Type II reports typically cover a 12-month period, and an expired report means you're flying blind on a vendor's current security posture.
- Check the observation period dates on all SOC 2 reports
- Request updated reports from vendors with expired documentation
- Verify you have Type II (not just Type I) for critical vendors
For more on why point-in-time assessments fall short, see our post on why security questionnaires are broken.
Day 5: Assess Holiday Vendor Coverage 📞
When your critical SaaS vendor has an outage on December 26th, who answers the phone? Many vendors operate on skeleton crews during the holidays, which can turn a minor issue into a major incident.
Major security incidents like SolarWinds and Log4j were discovered during holiday periods. Reduced staffing at both enterprises and vendors extends response times dramatically.
Day 6: Review Data Processing Agreements 📄
With GDPR fines up 168% year-over-year, data processing agreements (DPAs) are no longer optional paperwork—they're your shield against regulatory liability.
Learn more about the stakes in our article on GDPR vendor liability.
- Verify all data processors have signed DPAs
- Check that DPAs reflect actual data handling practices
- Ensure sub-processor lists are current
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Try Free Assessment →Day 7: Test Incident Response Plans 🚨
When did you last run a tabletop exercise involving a vendor breach scenario? If the answer is "never" or "I can't remember," you're not alone—but you're also not prepared.
- Review your incident response playbook for third-party scenarios
- Verify contact trees include vendor security teams
- Schedule a Q1 tabletop exercise with your IR team
Day 8: Evaluate AI Tool Usage 🤖
Shadow AI proliferates during crunch time. Employees racing to meet year-end deadlines often turn to AI tools without IT approval—uploading sensitive data to unknown services in the process.
Our analysis shows Shadow AI is 10x more dangerous than traditional Shadow IT.
- Survey departments about AI tool usage
- Check network logs for traffic to common AI services
- Review OAuth grants for AI-related applications
Day 9: Check Vendor Financial Health 💰
A vendor bankruptcy becomes your problem. Their data handling uncertainty becomes your data breach risk. Their service discontinuation becomes your business continuity crisis.
Year-end is when financial filings become available. Use them.
- Review public filings for publicly traded vendors
- Check for news about layoffs, funding issues, or acquisition talks
- Identify backup vendors for high-risk dependencies
Day 10: Update Vendor Risk Tiers 📊
Business criticality changes over time. That "nice to have" marketing tool you onboarded in March might now be mission-critical. That enterprise platform you rarely use might be safe to deprecate.
- Review vendor criticality ratings from the past year
- Adjust risk tiers based on current usage and data access
- Ensure assessment frequency matches risk tier
Day 11: Clean Up Test Accounts 🧹
Demo accounts with real data. Sandbox environments with production access. Proof-of-concept integrations that never got decommissioned. These are the forgotten gifts that attackers love to find.
- Audit all vendor sandbox and test environments
- Remove production data from non-production environments
- Decommission unused trial accounts
Day 12: Plan Your 2026 Vendor Strategy 📈
The best time to improve your vendor risk program was last year. The second best time is now.
Organizations that conduct year-end vendor reviews report 34% fewer vendor-related security incidents in the following year.
- Set vendor consolidation goals for 2026
- Budget for proper vendor risk tooling
- Schedule quarterly vendor review cadences
- Define success metrics for your TPRM program
Wrapping Up Your 12 Days
These 12 days of vendor risk aren't just about checking boxes—they're about entering 2026 with confidence. Every access token you revoke, every expired report you refresh, and every shadow tool you discover reduces your attack surface and strengthens your security posture.
The holiday season is about peace of mind. Give yourself the gift of knowing your vendor ecosystem is under control.
Start 2026 with Vendor Risk Under Control
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Start Your Free Assessment →Happy holidays from the RRR Security Team. Here's to a secure and successful 2026! 🎄
