In a world in which information is fast becoming a government’s and a business’s most important asset, security ratings are key points in designing and implementing a reliable, robust, long-term strategy for organisations and governing bodies.
Cybersecurity ratings, or security ratings, provide objective and dynamic measurements of an organisation’s cybersecurity performance. Millions of organisations around the world use BitSight security ratings as a tool to assess different critical scenarios to inform more efficient decision-making across the business ecosystem.
Security ratings are useful for managing cyber risk in any inter-organisational interaction, in particular in scenarios where access to extensive visibility into risks associated with processes and data is often not yet possible. We’re talking, for example, about understanding the risk posed by a third party or supply chain business relationship – in this case, security ratings improve a business’s ability to manage cyber risk from business partners. Among the other benefits of security ratings is the ability of governments to better understand the cybersecurity performance of organisations critical to decision-making process. Another example? Investment analysis in business acquisition – in this case, security ratings enable enhanced due diligence with regard to risk exposure and cybersecurity, and continuous monitoring of investment objectives or M&A targets.
Consider, if you will, the data protection and internal risk management needs to understand how security ratings can be useful in your business’s day-to-day operations. You can use security ratings to continuously assess your organisation’s risk posture to provide transparency to all stakeholders, or use benchmarking and comparisons with peer and sector-wide performance. Security ratings are also an important and strategic indicator of how you approach your business’s ecosystem. By using security ratings and risk analysis you can provide customers, regulators and third parties an accurate view of your business’s cybersecurity performance, thereby ensuring a healthier, more transparent and fruitful relationship on every level.
Rating classification
Security ratings provide a comprehensive and outside-in view of a business’s overall cybersecurity posture. Like credit ratings, Bitsight’s security ratings range from 250 to 900, where a higher rating indicates a better overall security posture. Bitsight uses several elements to determine security ratings, such as network mapping, multi-vector risk analysis (compromised systems, user behaviour, settings, software updates, and other risk vectors) and information exposure.
These scores, identified through a complex business data analysis system, add a quantitative metric to the assessment process and provide a simple indicator of your organisation’s security risk.
As information becomes more valuable, implementing ratings that enable assessment of the associated risk and any cybersecurity breaches is more than just mere business strategy and protection – it is a cross-cutting obligation for the entire collaborative ecosystem between businesses, organisations and governments. An obligation we cannot escape or we risk having the right information, the right strategy and the right processes, but not having the means to assess the security of these assets and, subsequently, not being able to protect them.
