For most organisations, security programmes are built on trusted frameworks that provide structure, define best practice, and give leadership teams confidence that key risks are being addressed. Governance grounded in frameworks is no longer enough on its own; CISOs must enable adaptive, intelligence-informed programmes, powered by continuous cyber risk intelligence, that can anticipate and respond to threats as they emerge.
Today, cyber risks do not follow audit calendars. New vulnerabilities emerge constantly, suppliers’ security postures shift unpredictably, and disruptions within a single cloud region or software providers can cascade across an entire ecosystem. Security leaders increasingly describe an environment where major vulnerabilities and third-party incidents occur in rapid succession, creating a near-constant state of emergency. In a world where risk changes by the hour, security assurance can no longer be a periodic exercise — it must be a living, continuously updated process.
This dynamic is especially evident in third-party risk. Many of the most disruptive incidents of recent years have originated deep within supply chains, affecting retailers, manufacturers, transport providers, and public services. These organisations were often compliant on paper, yet exposed in practice. Compliance documents accurately reflected the moment they were produced; the problem was everything that changed afterwards. As supply chains expand and digital dependencies multiply, this gap between compliance and exposure has only widened.
The rise of generative AI has added new momentum to this shift. Attackers are utilising automation to expedite reconnaissance, craft more convincing lures, and scale their operations. Defensive teams are also turning to AI, but much of that early adoption has focused on optimising compliance processes and reducing administrative burden. That makes assessment faster to produce, but does not make them more responsive to live threats. When risk evolves in minutes and hours, efficiency alone cannot compensate for a lack of real-time visibility.
This is why organisations are increasingly pairing frameworks with continuous monitoring. Rather than replacing standards, continuous monitoring modernises them. By feeding frameworks with live insight into exposed assets, supplier dependencies, and emerging vulnerabilities, organisations can see change as it happens and align their security programmes dynamically with best practice.
The virtues of continuous monitoring
Continuous monitoring has a particular impact on third-party risk. Due diligence at onboarding remains necessary, but it is no longer sufficient. Organisations now need to know when a supplier’s environment changes, when new exposure appears, and when controls that once passed an audit begin to drift. This visibility also supports broader resilience planning. Recent outages and concentrated cloud dependencies have prompted many organisations to reconsider their reliance on single regions or single providers across their supply chain. Detecting these concentrations in real time is critical to preventing small disruptions from becoming systemic.
Regulators are moving in this direction, too. Frameworks such as DORA place growing emphasis on operational resilience, dependency management and ongoing oversight of critical third parties. These expectations cannot be met through static assessments alone; they presuppose a more dynamic understanding of risk, supported by real-time insight.
Continuous monitoring does not diminish the importance of compliance. Frameworks still provide the structure, consistency, and shared understanding that every mature programme needs. But they must now be complemented with a live, data-driven view of how exposure is shifting day to day. In a landscape defined by accelerating automation, expanding supply chains, and fast-moving adversaries, true resilience depends not just on meeting standards but on keeping pace with change.
Chris Campbell is a senior Vice President, the chief information security officer, and head of technology at Bitsight
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