Third-party and partner assurance

The third-party and partner assurance requirement means you must assess each third party (suppliers, partners, service providers) against your information security expectations, then track that assurance over time with contracts and evidence. To operationalize it for TISAX, build a risk-based intake, due diligence, contracting, and monitoring workflow that produces assessor-ready artifacts. ¹

Key takeaways:

• Scope all third parties that can touch your information or operations, then tier them by risk to decide the depth of assurance.
• Require security expectations contractually, and track obligations, exceptions, and renewals in a control register.
• Keep audit-ready evidence: assessments performed, decisions made, and ongoing monitoring records. ¹

A TISAX assessment will quickly expose whether your organization treats third-party risk as a documented operational process or as ad hoc procurement paperwork. The third-party and partner assurance requirement focuses on one thing: can you prove you assess partners and suppliers against information security expectations, and do you keep that assurance current. ¹

For a CCO or GRC lead, the operational goal is repeatability. You need a defined intake that identifies third parties, a risk-tiering method that drives the level of due diligence, standard contract clauses that translate expectations into enforceable obligations, and a tracking system that shows status over the full lifecycle. The common failure mode is “we have security addenda somewhere” without a record of who was assessed, what evidence was reviewed, what gaps were accepted, and whether anything changed.

This page gives requirement-level implementation guidance you can put into production quickly: roles, workflow steps, decision points, artifacts, and the exam-style questions you should be ready to answer. The intent aligns to TISAX’s expectation that partners and suppliers are assessed for information security expectations and that you can demonstrate implementation with evidence. ¹

Requirement: third-party and partner assurance requirement (TISAX)

Objective: Assess partners and suppliers for information security expectations and retain evidence that the assessment is performed, decisions are made by accountable owners, and controls are tracked through the relationship lifecycle. ¹

Plain-English interpretation

You must:

1. Know which third parties matter (who they are, what they do, what they can access).
2. Assess them before engagement (or before access) against your security expectations.
3. Set expectations in writing (contracts, security addenda, data processing terms where relevant).
4. Track and refresh assurance as risks and services change.
5. Prove it with artifacts an assessor can follow end-to-end. ¹

If you can’t show a consistent workflow and evidence, you will struggle to demonstrate that third-party and partner assurance is implemented beyond intent. ¹

Regulatory text

Provided excerpt (summary-level, not licensed standard text): “Baseline implementation-intent summary derived from publicly available framework overviews; licensed standard text is not reproduced in this record.” ¹

Implementation-intent summary: “Assess partners and suppliers for information security expectations.” ¹

What the operator must do: Build and operate a third-party assurance process that (a) evaluates third parties against defined security expectations appropriate to the risk, (b) makes a documented decision to approve/deny/approve-with-conditions, and (c) tracks contractual obligations and follow-up actions. Your assessor will look for consistency between policy, procedure, and records. ¹

Who it applies to

Entities

• Automotive suppliers and automotive service providers seeking or maintaining TISAX assessment outcomes, or supporting customers that require TISAX-aligned assurance. ¹

Operational context (what relationships are in scope)

Treat these as in-scope third parties whenever they can affect confidentiality, integrity, or availability of your information or services:

• IT/hosting providers (cloud, data centers, MSPs)
• Software providers (SaaS, tooling with customer or engineering data)
• Engineering and test partners (prototype, design, validation)
• Logistics and manufacturing partners with access to systems or sensitive data
• Consultants/contractors with network or data access
• Subprocessors supporting your contracted services (your fourth parties, managed through your third party)

Practical scoping rule: if a third party can access, store, transmit, or materially influence your information or systems, they require assurance proportionate to risk. ¹

What you actually need to do (step-by-step)

The minimum workable operating model is supplier assurance + contractual control tracking. ¹

Step 1: Build and publish your third-party security expectations

Create a concise baseline of expectations that can be tested. Examples:

• Access control and MFA requirements for administrative access
• Encryption expectations for data in transit and at rest (state your standard, not “industry standard”)
• Incident notification and cooperation obligations
• Subcontractor controls (approval, flow-down clauses)
• Vulnerability/patching expectations and secure development expectations if they provide software
• Right to audit or right to request evidence (SOC reports, ISO certs, pen test summaries, etc.)

Keep it implementable: one policy statement plus a contract addendum and an evidence checklist mapped to risk tiers.

Step 2: Create a third-party inventory with service context

You need a list that answers:

• Legal name, service owner, and business owner
• What service is provided
• Where data is processed/stored (at least country/region)
• Data types handled (e.g., customer data, engineering data, credentials)
• Connectivity (network access, privileged access, API access)
• Criticality (operational dependency)

This inventory becomes your control plane: no intake, no approval; no approval, no access.

Step 3: Risk-tier each third party using a simple decision matrix

Define tiers (example logic, customize to your environment):

• High risk: access to sensitive data or production systems, or high operational dependency
• Medium risk: business-impacting service with limited access
• Low risk: no sensitive data, no system access, easily replaceable

Document the criteria and apply them consistently. Assessors dislike “gut feel” tiers with no rationale. ¹

Step 4: Perform due diligence before contract signature or access

Match diligence depth to tier:

• Low risk: questionnaire + sanctions/conflicts checks as applicable + contract baseline clauses
• Medium risk: questionnaire + evidence review (policies, security architecture overview, incident process) + contract clauses + remediation plan for gaps
• High risk: deeper evidence (independent reports if available, security testing results summaries where appropriate, access model review) + explicit go-live criteria + executive exception handling for residual risk

Output must be a written decision: approve, approve with conditions, or reject. Include residual risk acceptance where needed, signed by an accountable owner.

Step 5: Contracting: enforce expectations and track obligations

Standardize a security addendum (or clauses) that covers:

• Confidentiality and permitted use
• Security controls commitments (your expectation set)
• Incident notification and investigation support
• Subcontractor/subprocessor restrictions and flow-down
• Data return/destruction at termination
• Audit/evidence rights
• Termination rights for material security breach

Then, track contractual controls in a register: which clauses are in place, where the signed agreement lives, exceptions granted, and renewal dates. This is the “contractual control tracking” auditors can follow quickly. ¹

Step 6: Onboarding controls: connect assurance to access

Tie the process to real gates:

• No system access until third-party approval is recorded
• No production connectivity until required conditions are met
• No sensitive data sharing until classification and handling terms are in place

If Procurement can bypass Security, your process is not operational.

Step 7: Ongoing monitoring and re-assessment

Define triggers that force reassessment:

• Material scope change (new data types, new access paths, new geography)
• Security incident involving the third party
• Contract renewal
• Performance issues affecting availability or integrity
• Ownership change / major control changes disclosed by the third party

Operationally, assign each third party an owner and a review cadence appropriate to tier. The key is not the cadence itself; it’s that you can prove monitoring happened and actions were taken.

Step 8: Exception management and remediation tracking

You will accept some gaps. Make it controlled:

• Written exception with scope, duration, compensating controls, approver
• Remediation plan with target dates and owner
• Evidence of closure (updated contract, new control evidence, technical change)

This is where teams often fail: exceptions are granted verbally and never revisited.

Required evidence and artifacts to retain

Maintain artifacts that show the lifecycle:

Governance

• Third-party risk management (TPRM) policy and procedure
• Defined security expectations for third parties (standard)
• Risk-tiering methodology and criteria

Operational records

• Third-party inventory with tier, owner, service description
• Completed due diligence packets (questionnaire, evidence list, notes)
• Approval decisions (including approve-with-conditions) and sign-offs
• Signed contracts/security addenda and a clause/obligation tracking log
• Exception requests, approvals, and expiry dates
• Remediation plans and closure evidence
• Monitoring records (reviews performed, incident follow-ups, renewal reassessments)

Traceability aid (high value for assessors)

• A single “golden record” per critical third party linking: tier → assessment → decision → contract → monitoring events.

Daydream can help by centralizing the “golden record” so you can show assessors a consistent story without assembling evidence from email, procurement tools, and shared drives.

Common exam/audit questions and hangups

Expect variations of:

• “Show me your third-party inventory. How do you know it’s complete?”
• “Pick two high-risk suppliers. Walk me through onboarding evidence.”
• “How did you decide this supplier is medium risk?”
• “Where are security requirements stated contractually, and who approved exceptions?”
• “How do you track subcontractors/subprocessors?”
• “What triggers reassessment, and show an example where you actually did it?” ¹

Hangups that stall assessments:

• Inventory exists, but no linkage to risk tier or data access.
• Questionnaires collected, but no decision record or follow-up on gaps.
• Contracts lack security clauses or the signed version can’t be produced quickly.

Frequent implementation mistakes (and how to avoid them)

1. Mistake: Treating procurement intake as assurance.
   Fix: Require security review and a documented decision before access or data sharing.

2. Mistake: One-size-fits-all questionnaires.
   Fix: Use tiered diligence. High-risk relationships need evidence review and explicit go-live conditions.

3. Mistake: No contractual control tracking.
   Fix: Maintain a clause/obligation register and tie it to each third party record. ¹

4. Mistake: Exceptions without expiry.
   Fix: Put an end date on every exception and add it to a review queue.

5. Mistake: Monitoring is aspirational.
   Fix: Define triggers and show at least one completed reassessment cycle for critical third parties before your assessment.

Enforcement context and risk implications

No public enforcement cases are provided in the source catalog for this requirement. Practically, the risk shows up as customer findings, failed TISAX assessment outcomes, supply chain incidents, and breach impact amplification when third-party access and obligations are unclear. ¹

Practical 30/60/90-day execution plan

First 30 days: establish control foundation

• Publish third-party security expectations (baseline) and a standard security addendum.
• Stand up a third-party inventory (even if it starts as a spreadsheet) with owners, service descriptions, and access/data context.
• Define a tiering model and approval workflow (RACI: business owner, security, procurement, legal).
• Implement a hard gate: no new third party gets access without an assurance decision recorded.

Days 31–60: operationalize and prove repeatability

• Triage existing third parties: identify your highest-risk relationships first (based on access and criticality).
• Run due diligence on the highest-risk set and document decisions, conditions, and exceptions.
• Build the contractual control tracking register and link signed agreements.
• Create templates: assessment memo, exception form, remediation tracker.

Days 61–90: monitoring, remediation, and assessor-ready packaging

• Perform at least one monitoring activity per critical third party (renewal review, scope change review, evidence refresh).
• Close or formally accept key gaps with documented compensating controls.
• Assemble an “assessor pack” for a sample of high-risk third parties: inventory record, tier rationale, diligence evidence, decision, contract, monitoring, and exceptions.
• If you use Daydream, configure a third-party assurance workflow so evidence, approvals, and renewals stay centralized and exportable for assessment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do “partners” include customers or only suppliers?

Treat “third party” broadly: any external entity that can access, process, or influence your information or systems. In practice, suppliers and service providers are the core focus, but partners with data/system access belong in scope too. ¹

What is the minimum evidence an assessor will accept for third-party assurance?

You need a repeatable workflow and records that show tiering, due diligence performed, a documented decision, and contractual expectations. A single completed end-to-end example for a high-risk third party is more persuasive than many incomplete questionnaires. ¹

Can we rely on a third party’s ISO certificate or SOC report instead of our own assessment?

You can use third-party attestations as evidence, but you still need to assess whether they meet your expectations for the specific service and access model. Document the gap analysis and any conditions or exceptions you accept. ¹

How do we handle subcontractors (fourth parties)?

Put flow-down and disclosure obligations in your contracts, then require the third party to identify relevant subcontractors for in-scope services. Track subcontractor approval and changes as reassessment triggers. ¹

What if the business insists on onboarding a high-risk supplier quickly?

Use an “approve with conditions” path: define temporary controls, a short remediation plan, and an exception with an expiry date approved by an accountable leader. Tie production access to completion of the highest-risk conditions. ¹

We have many legacy suppliers. Where do we start?

Start with the suppliers that have sensitive data access, privileged access, or operational criticality. Bring them into the same workflow you use for new suppliers, then work down the tiers. ¹

Related compliance topics

• 2025 SEC Marketing Rule Examination Focus Areas
• Access and identity controls
• Access Control (AC)
• Access control and identity discipline
• Access control management

Footnotes

1. ENX TISAX overview