What if security wasn’t the Department of No, but the engine behind safe innovation? For too long, governance has been viewed as a zero-sum game: you either move fast or you move securely.

In this month’s edition of the UpGuardian, we challenge that trade-off. We lead with two upcoming webinars: one covering The State of Shadow AI and another detailing the official launch of the NET+ UpGuard program—a landmark collaboration with Internet2 designed to help higher education and research institutions scale third-party risk management through community-vetted standards. We also take a look at our latest vendor tiering guide, a strategic blueprint that helps teams move away from one-size-fits-all assessments and toward a proportionate, risk-based approach that eliminates administrative friction. Finally, we explore our Context Gap blog series, which explains why security teams are currently losing nearly 50% of their time to manual investigation and triage rather than remediation.

Upcoming Webinar: The State of Shadow AI

Security teams are currently facing a new kind of shadow threat as employees rapidly adopt generative AI tools to boost productivity. On May 21st, join UpGuard’s research team for a deep dive into the findings of their global State of Shadow AI report. Explore the critical AI Security Paradox—where training can actually increase unauthorized usage—and learn how organizations can shift from a culture of restriction to one of guided enablement. Discover data-driven strategies to gain visibility into unmonitored AI tools and implement intelligent guardrails that protect sensitive data without slowing down innovation.

Secure your org's AI usage →

Upcoming Webinar: Scaling Higher Education Security with the Internet2 Net+ UpGuard Program

Traditional risk management often forces a choice between academic freedom and institutional security. On May 13th, join IT leaders from Harvard University, Colorado State University, and Internet2 for the official launch of the NET+ UpGuard program. Discover how a community-driven framework, integrated with HECVAT standards, allows institutions to streamline vendor assessments and utilize AI-powered workflows without hindering the research missions that drive them.

Save your seat →

Beyond the Burden: Scaling Frictionless Governance

Vendor Tiering: How to Score Vendors Across Five Critical Pillars

When teams can’t distinguish between a mission-critical cloud provider and a one-time transactional service, they waste hours on low-value assessments while high-risk blind spots grow. Our latest Vendor Tiering Guide provides a blueprint for building a proportionate third-party cyber risk program. Learn how to use a 5-tier framework and weighted scoring logic to align your assessment depth with actual inherent risk, ensuring your security resources are focused where they matter most.

Start refining your vendor tiers →

Research Report: The Context Gap

Visibility without context is just noise, and that noise is expensive. Our research shows that security teams are losing nearly 50% of their time to manual investigation rather than remediation. This triage tax creates a dangerous exposure gap where critical threats linger while analysts hunt for data across disconnected tools. Our new Context Gap blog series breaks down the shift from gathering more data to prioritizing high-context intelligence, helping you collapse your time-to-context from hours to seconds.

Eliminate your triage tax →

The Future of Frictionless Governance and CRPM

How do we move from a manual administrative burden to a machine-speed operating system for risk? At last month’s UpGuard Summit, we unveiled our full 2026 vision, the culmination of our mission to eliminate the friction between speed and security. From AI-driven automation to deeper forensic visibility, see how we are building the tools that help your team stop chasing data and start driving governance.

Unlock the future of UpGuard →

The initiatives in this month’s issue point toward a new standard for the modern enterprise: security that scales without slowing down. Whether it’s adopting the community-led rigor of the NET+ program, applying proportional tiering to your vendor list, or reclaiming the 50% of time lost to the context gap, the goal is the same—eliminating friction so your team can focus on the mission. As we move further into 2026, the transition from manual administration to an automated operating system is no longer a luxury; it is the only way to stay ahead.

See frictionless governance in action: Book a free demo.

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Want to feel less stiff?

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Matthew Fried

Apr 30

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