What is a Service Provider a.k.a. "a Fourth Party"?

A service provider, a.k.a. “fourth party” is a company that provides any type of service (including on-premise solutions). They own and operate an infrastructure that’s controlled or are used by their customers. Some examples are web hosting, certificate signing, cloud infrastructure services, or email hosting. Nearly all organizations depend on these various types of service providers to successfully run their businesses.

Glossary

Cloud Service Provider (CSP)

A provider of Cloud network services.

External Service Provider

Cloud providers and other companies that own an IP-space where an organization’s assets are hosted.

Examples: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) providers, internet service providers (ISP), and data centers.

Fourth Party

A service provider that third parties depend on.

Internet Service Provider (ISP)

An organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet.

Service Provider

A company that handles or delivers services for other companies.

Service Provider Product

Service offerings, such as web hosting, certificate signing, cloud infrastructure services, email hosting, etc.

Risks

• Fourth party breaches and downtime may lead to direct revenue loss, including loss of customer confidence.
• Disruption of certain services may enable attackers to use company assets to deliver malware to employees and customers, or download company intellectual property, or compromise customer data.

Service Provider Label

Service providers are designated and labeled as a service provider in the Bitsight platform. They are identified with:

CM App: An SRV label – – in their Overview page.

Insurance App: An SRV label – – in their Overview page.