Verizon’s 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) is out — and one of the top takeaways couldn’t be more clear: third-party risk is rapidly accelerating. This year, breaches involving third parties doubled compared to last year (from 15% to 30%), often driven by vulnerability exploitation and business disruptions. As the report puts it: when a vendor is hosting your data, the best strategy is to focus on how secure and resilient their environment truly is.

The DBIR also highlights a shift in how organizations are addressing third-party risk. While traditional risk questionnaires remain part of the equation, the report underscores a growing need for TPCRM solutions that deliver quantifiable, actionable insights — especially those that assess real-world security controls. At Tenchi, that’s exactly where we’re focused: helping organizations achieve continuous, cooperative, and comprehensive visibility into third-party cyber risk.

Tenchi CTO and Co-Founder, Alexandre Sieira, and Adrian Sanabria, Principal Researcher at the Defender's Initiative — both hosts of our Alice in Supply Chains podcast — had the great pleasure of speaking directly with Alex Pinto from Verizon Business, one of the key minds behind the DBIR, right as the report was released to the public.