Insights blog.

Now more than ever before, it’s critical to build a strategic security performance management program in which you take a risk-based, outcome-driven approach to measuring, monitoring, managing, and reporting on your organization’s cybersecurity program performance over time. Of course, in order to do so, you need an easily understandable framework through which you can conduct a cyber risk analysis and lead meaningful conversations on the business impact of your organization’s risk exposure.

Whether your organization is just beginning to develop your security performance management systems, or you already have a mature and established program in place, there is always room to innovate and improve the cyber risk monitoring tools you use.

There’s no question about it: Being exposed to cyber risk is an inevitable part of doing business in today’s world. In fact, a recent ESG study found that 82% of organizations believe that cyber risk has increased over the past two years.

It’s every security manager's worst nightmare. A member of the IT department reaches to alert that malicious software has been detected on an internal network, and the hacker potentially has access to layers of sensitive data. In the following days and weeks of remediation, locating an access point, and reinforcing cybersecurity measures, security managers often ask themselves, “could this data leak have been prevented?”

Despite the best efforts from security and risk leaders, it can be extremely difficult to establish an efficient and effective enterprise risk management plan. As with anything that requires buy-in from the executive level, there has to be defined goals and clear paths the security team will take to make investments in their program feel worth it.

Cyber risk is everywhere. As organizations become increasingly interconnected — across business units, geographies, subsidiaries, remote offices, and third-party networks — the digital ecosystem is expanding rapidly. And this increased attack surface introduces a variety of new and evolving vulnerabilities.

The SolarWinds supply chain attack discovered in late 2020 was a wakeup call for security managers across all industries. The hack is shaping up to be one of the most impactful attacks against a critical supply chain partner in history.

As if the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t bad enough, the unpredictable events of 2020 created the perfect storm for a huge escalation in ransomware attacks.

In light of recent widespread breaches and security incidents, such as the cyber attack targeting SolarWinds, security and risk managers are under more pressure than ever to prove that their cybersecurity investments are actually paying off. 

Not long ago, corporate executives would give only passing thoughts to their organization’s cybersecurity postures. Leadership and board members would take notice in the wake of a major data breach, for example, or a couple of times a year as a “check the box” exercise to maintain compliance with regulations. Overall, however, cybersecurity analytics didn’t really garner much attention.

Effective communication between different members of your team can make all the difference when it comes to maintaining your desired security posture and preventing massive cyber incidents. Reports can play a critical role in these communications, serving as the central mechanism through which to align on the most significant issues and make more confident, data-driven decisions.

In today’s “new normal” operating environment, you’re contending with a growing attack surface, limited resources, and an increasingly remote workforce — all at once. Given these conditions, it’s more important than ever to have a solid security performance management program in place.

Data can be the key to making more informed, strategic cybersecurity decisions — and ensuring you’re spending your security dollars effectively. In order to get the most out of your increasingly limited security resources and meet or surpass industry benchmarks, you need visibility into the relative performance of your security program — and insight into the cyber risk present across your ecosystem.

It should come as no surprise that the cybersecurity landscape has been changing dramatically throughout the year 2020. According to Bitsight research, up to 85% of the workforce in some industries has shifted to remote work in response to the COVID-19 pandemic — introducing corporate devices to a variety of new and evolving cyber threats. While malicious actors are taking advantage of this opportunity to advance their nefarious objectives, security teams are racing to adapt to our “new normal” operating environment so that they can continue to effectively mitigate risk across their growing attack surfaces.

In response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, more employees have been working from home over the past several months than ever before. In fact, during the period of March 2020, we looked at a sample size of 41,000 organizations and found that up to 85% of the workforce in some industries had shifted to remote work.