Vendor Data Collection Methods

Vendor Discovery uses technical and non-technical observations to connect companies and vendors. A connection’s certainty level is based on these observations.

Technical Observations

Technical observations are externally-collected observations, such as:

• A certificate authority that can be identified by looking at the root certificate in a company’s certificate chain (e.g., GoDaddy, GlobalSign).
• An email provider that can be identified by looking at providers’ SPF records.(e.g., Gmail, Yahoo! Mail).
• A hosting provider that can be identified by the IP range the company’s website is running on (e.g., GoDaddy, BlueHost).
• A DNS provider that can be identified by the use of known nameservers (e.g - Azure DNA, Cloudflare).
• A CDN provider that can be identified by the hostname or IP address used to fetch resources on a company’s website (e.g., Akamai, Cloudflare).
• Other technology providers that can be identified by their use on a company’s website.

Non-Technical Observations

Non-technical observations are collected using natural language processing methods that reference technologies listed on resumes, job descriptions, and Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) filings to infer connections.