Cybersecurity rating

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Security ratings are an objective, data-driven, quantifiable measurement of an organization's overall cybersecurity performance. Security ratings provide businesses and government agencies with a third-party, independent view into the security behaviors and practices of their own organization as well as that of their business partners. Security ratings are a useful tool in evaluating cyber risk and facilitating collaborative, risk-based conversations. [1]

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According to Gartner, cybersecurity ratings will become as important as credit ratings when assessing the risk of existing and new business relationships. Gartner predicts that these services will be a prerequisite for business relationships [2]

Security Rating Services

The adoption of security rating services platforms is on the rise. In fact, Forrester Consulting found that 87% of respondents find security ratings valuable (37%) or extremely valuable (50%). [3] There are a number of companies that provide security ratings services, including ISS, SecurityScorecard, myCYPR, Panorays, BitSight, FortifyData, RiskRecon, Black Kite and UpGuard.

Security Rating Services in 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a completely different environment for cyber-risk. According to S&P Global Ratings, rating services may become an exception to these changes in the world of cyber-risk. [4] Given the COVID-19 pandemic that occurred in 2020, many brick and mortar shops that have mainly been exclusively accessible through in-person contact, have been forced to provide their goods and services through a website. This shift causes a larger need for these services given the increase in possible clients that want to know the safety of their business domain.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computer security</span> Protection of computer systems from information disclosure, theft or damage

Computer security is the protection of computer software, systems and networks from threats that can lead to unauthorized information disclosure, theft or damage to hardware, software, or data, as well as from the disruption or misdirection of the services they provide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trend Micro</span> Japanese multinational cyber security company

Trend Micro Inc. is an American-Japanese cyber security software company. The company has globally dispersed R&D in 16 locations across every continent excluding Antarctica. The company develops enterprise security software for servers, containers, and cloud computing environments, networks, and end points. Its cloud and virtualization security products provide automated security for customers of VMware, Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

Information security standards are techniques generally outlined in published materials that attempt to protect the cyber environment of a user or organization. This environment includes users themselves, networks, devices, all software, processes, information in storage or transit, applications, services, and systems that can be connected directly or indirectly to networks.

A chief information security officer (CISO) is a senior-level executive within an organization responsible for establishing and maintaining the enterprise vision, strategy, and program to ensure information assets and technologies are adequately protected. The CISO directs staff in identifying, developing, implementing, and maintaining processes across the enterprise to reduce information and information technology (IT) risks. They respond to incidents, establish appropriate standards and controls, manage security technologies, and direct the establishment and implementation of policies and procedures. The CISO is also usually responsible for information-related compliance. The CISO is also responsible for protecting proprietary information and assets of the company, including the data of clients and consumers. CISO works with other executives to make sure the company is growing in a responsible and ethical manner.

Security convergence refers to the convergence of two historically distinct security functions – physical security and information security – within enterprises; both are integral parts of a coherent risk management program. Security convergence is motivated by the recognition that corporate assets are increasingly information-based. In the past, physical assets demanded the bulk of protection efforts, whereas information assets are demanding increasing attention. Although generally used in relation to cyber-physical convergence, security convergence can also refer to the convergence of security with related risk and resilience disciplines, including business continuity planning and emergency management. Security convergence is often referred to as 'converged security'.

Network intelligence (NI) is a technology that builds on the concepts and capabilities of deep packet inspection (DPI), packet capture and business intelligence (BI). It examines, in real time, IP data packets that cross communications networks by identifying the protocols used and extracting packet content and metadata for rapid analysis of data relationships and communications patterns. Also, sometimes referred to as Network Acceleration or piracy.

Security information and event management (SIEM) is a field within computer security that combines security information management (SIM) and security event management (SEM) to enable real-time analysis of security alerts generated by applications and network hardware. SIEM systems are central to the operation of security operations centers (SOCs), where they are employed to detect, investigate, and respond to security incidents. SIEM technology collects and aggregates data from various systems, allowing organizations to meet compliance requirements while safeguarding against threats.

An insider threat is a perceived threat to an organization that comes from people within the organization, such as employees, former employees, contractors or business associates, who have inside information concerning the organization's security practices, data and computer systems. The threat may involve fraud, the theft of confidential or commercially valuable information, the theft of intellectual property, or the sabotage of computer systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palo Alto Networks</span> American technology company

Palo Alto Networks, Inc. is an American multinational cybersecurity company with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The core product is a platform that includes advanced firewalls and cloud-based offerings that extend those firewalls to cover other aspects of security. The company serves over 70,000 organizations in over 150 countries, including 85 of the Fortune 100. It is home to the Unit 42 threat research team and hosts the Ignite cybersecurity conference. It is a partner organization of the World Economic Forum.

A cyberattack occurs when there is an unauthorized action against computer infrastructure that compromises the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of its content.

Information security awareness is an evolving part of information security that focuses on raising consciousness regarding potential risks of the rapidly evolving forms of information and the rapidly evolving threats to that information which target human behavior. As threats have matured and information has increased in value, attackers have increased their capabilities and expanded to broader intentions, developed more attack methods and methodologies and are acting on more diverse motives. As information security controls and processes have matured, attacks have matured to circumvent controls and processes. Attackers have targeted and successfully exploited individuals human behavior to breach corporate networks and critical infrastructure systems. Targeted individuals who are unaware of information and threats may unknowingly circumvent traditional security controls and processes and enable a breach of the organization. In response, information security awareness is maturing. Cybersecurity as a business problem has dominated the agenda of most chief information officers (CIO)s, exposing a need for countermeasures to today's cyber threat landscape. The goal of Information security awareness is to make everyone aware that they are susceptible to the opportunities and challenges in today's threat landscape, change human risk behaviors and create or enhance a secure organizational culture.

Third-party management is the process whereby companies monitor and manage interactions with all external parties with which it has a relationship. This may include both contractual and non-contractual parties. Third-party management is conducted primarily for the purpose of assessing the ongoing behavior, performance and risk that each third-party relationship represents to a company. Areas of monitoring include supplier and vendor information management, corporate and social responsibility compliance, Supplier Risk Management, IT vendor risk, anti-bribery/anti-corruption (ABAC) compliance, information security (infosec) compliance, performance measurement, and contract risk management. The importance of third-party management was elevated in 2013 when the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency stipulated that all regulated banks must manage the risk of all their third parties.

The Co-Managed IT security service model entails security monitoring, event correlation, incident response, system tuning, and compliance support across an organization's entire IT environment. Co-Management allows organizations to collaborate with their managed security service providers by blending security expertise of the provider with the contextual knowledge of the customer to optimise security posture.

Cyber threat intelligence (CTI) is knowledge, skills and experience-based information concerning the occurrence and assessment of both cyber and physical threats and threat actors that is intended to help mitigate potential attacks and harmful events occurring in cyberspace. Cyber threat intelligence sources include open source intelligence, social media intelligence, human Intelligence, technical intelligence, device log files, forensically acquired data or intelligence from the internet traffic and data derived for the deep and dark web.

ThetaRay is a fintech software and big data analytics company with headquarters in Hod HaSharon, Israel and New York, and offices in Madrid, London, and Singapore.

Browser isolation is a cybersecurity model which aims to physically isolate an internet user's browsing activity away from their local networks and infrastructure. Browser isolation technologies approach this model in different ways, but they all seek to achieve the same goal, effective isolation of the web browser and a user's browsing activity as a method of securing web browsers from browser-based security exploits, as well as web-borne threats such as ransomware and other malware. When a browser isolation technology is delivered to its customers as a cloud hosted service, this is known as remote browser isolation (RBI), a model which enables organizations to deploy a browser isolation solution to their users without managing the associated server infrastructure. There are also client side approaches to browser isolation, based on client-side hypervisors, which do not depend on servers in order to isolate their users browsing activity and the associated risks, instead the activity is virtually isolated on the local host machine. Client-side solutions break the security through physical isolation model, but they do allow the user to avoid the server overhead costs associated with remote browser isolation solutions.

BitSight Technologies, Inc. is a cybersecurity ratings company that analyzes companies, government agencies, and educational institutions. It is based in Back Bay, Boston. Security ratings that are delivered by BitSight are used by banks and insurance companies among other organizations. The company rates more than 200,000 organizations with respect to their cybersecurity.

Greg Martin is a cybersecurity expert and entrepreneur. Martin was the founder of cyber-security company Anomali and the founder of the cyber security company JASK . Martin is credited with inventing the first Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP), and is the creator of the popular open source Honeypot project “Modern Honey Network”.

Extended detection and response (XDR) is a cybersecurity technology that monitors and mitigates cyber security threats.

Arctic Wolf Networks is a cybersecurity company that provides security monitoring to detect and respond to cyber threats. The company monitors on-premises computers, networks and cloud based information assets from malicious activity such as cybercrime, ransomware, and malicious software attacks.

References

  1. "Principles for Fair and Accurate Security Ratings". U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 2017-06-19. Retrieved 2020-02-12.
  2. "Innovation Insight for Security Rating Services". Gartner. Retrieved 2020-02-12.
  3. "Adoption of security ratings platforms is on the rise". Help Net Security. 2018-04-27. Retrieved 2020-02-12.
  4. Inc, BitSight Technologies. "Gartner Report: The Urgency to Treat Cybersecurity as a Business Decision". BitSight. Retrieved 2021-02-28.{{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)