2025-05-30 • 4 min read
Most companies are now deeply connected to vendors, platforms, and service providers. That’s not a problem by itself—but when one of those vendors is breached, you may be exposed in ways you did not plan for. This is known as breach inheritance.
Here are three things to understand about how inherited risk works and why it matters.
Breach inheritance means that your data, credentials, or infrastructure could be at risk even if your own environment was never directly targeted. If a vendor hosts your customer data, provides your login system, or integrates with your backend, their compromise becomes your exposure.
You may not be notified until days or weeks after the fact, which delays your response and complicates your investigation.
What to do:
Customers often do not distinguish between your systems and your vendors. If a breach impacts their data, they associate the failure with you. This is especially true when you collect or control access to that data.
You may have to manage disclosure, support questions, and long-term trust damage even though the breach happened elsewhere.
What to do:
Depending on your industry, location, and the type of data involved, you may be required to notify regulators or affected individuals—even if the breach occurred on a vendor’s system. Privacy laws like GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA do not stop at your firewall.
Falling behind on breach disclosure can add legal risk to an already difficult situation.
What to do:
Breach inheritance is not a fringe risk. It is a common consequence of relying on modern SaaS platforms, cloud providers, and APIs. The better prepared you are to respond to someone else’s breach, the less likely it is to become your crisis.
If you need help assessing your third-party exposure or preparing a practical response plan, contact us. We can help you identify the blind spots before they are exploited.