Why are cybersecurity ratings important?
Just as credit ratings provide insight into financial stability of an entity, cybersecurity ratings provide insight into organisational cybersecurity health and practices to prevent data and security breaches.
Cybersecurity ratings grade your security performance by how well information is protected within your network. It is extremely important, in today’s digital age, to protect your data and to prevent security breaches with cybersecurity ratings – they are now as important as your organisation’s finances and reputation.
A cybersecurity ratings organisation reviews a company’s security posture and assigns a security rating by evaluating whether the company can protect its data assets from data breaches. The ratings organisation compares assets and liabilities to provide a rating score that others can rely on and factor into their decision-making process.
A good cybersecurity rating is an asset to any organisation, which can open doors to new opportunities and partnerships and provide assurance to existing customers. On the other hand, a negative cybersecurity rating can indicate that an organisation’s data is at risk.
What can a good cybersecurity rating do for you?
Organisations need to prove to prospective customers that their information security controls, and security performance are at an optimal level, that their data can be protected – this can be achieved through cybersecurity ratings in almost all cases.
A high security rating provides partners with objective and up-to-date validation that cybersecurity posture and practices are structured to keep data safe within your network. Organisations can also leverage cyber security ratings to help improve their market positioning, reputation and increase profitability.
Managing third-party risk factors
Although audit reports, references and certifications provide some form of cybersecurity oversight, it is really an incomplete picture which is unable to provide a day-to-day security posture update in most cases – that’s where cybersecurity ratings come into play.
Cyber security ratings can reduce risks existing within third parties to protect your data – define cybersecurity thresholds for new vendors, help define the level of assessment required for each vendor and aid in making decisions in the procurement process. Third-party vendors with a higher rating provide greater safety and security to your organisation, so that’s why companies feel more comfortable partnering with those rather than with the vendors with lower security ratings.
What puts your business are risk?
Cybersecurity ratings incorporate daily activities such as network security, endpoint security and security monitoring.
RiskXchange’s cybersecurity ratings cover the main risk factors – network security, application security, DNS health, endpoint security, patching cadence, hacker chatter, IP reputation, web application security, social engineering and leaked credentials.
What RiskXchange cybersecurity ratings deliver
RiskXchange is a leading information security technology company, that helps companies of all sizes, in all cases, all around the world fight cybersecurity threats by providing instant risk ratings. Our vision is to help organisations of all sizes manage their enterprise and supply chain security risk exposure, by providing a next-generation real-time security risk ratings platform, capable of presenting easy to understand risk and security ratings for the board.
RiskXchange provides a powerful AI-assisted, yet simple automated and centralised unique 360-degree cybersecurity risk rating management approach. We generate objective, quantitative reporting on a company’s cyber security risk and performance, that enables organisations with evolving business requirements, to conduct business securely in today’s open, collaborative, digital world.
A closer look at RiskXchange cybersecurity ratings
Let’s take a closer look at what RiskXchange’s cybersecurity ratings can deliver:
– Enhance processes by delivering simple overviews of security performance. This is achieved very quickly by reviewing a company’s security ratings.
– Give organisations an objective and data-driven ratings making it much easier to monitor and evaluate performance of both short and longer terms. Companies with a security ratings not only receive prompt alerts in the event of a change to their security performance but can also identify the issue that caused the shift in their ratings.
– Enable collaboration and improvements to risk migration plans with partners and third parties. It also aids the setting of security standards in Data Processing Agreements (DPA) and other comparable contracts.
– Helps to get valuable insights into the cyber risk status of business partners and third, even fourth parties and associates.
– Empowers an organisation to be able to spot and remedy cyber risk within supply chain eco-systems.
RiskXchange delivers cost-effective solutions
RiskXchange’s security risk ratings can help you protect your data and manage cyber hygiene in all cases. We offer continuous cybersecurity monitoring, providing real-time visibility of users and their devices on all applications, software and device types. Our cybersecurity monitoring best practices give organisations the ability to continuously look over their network on a case-by-case basis to stay one step ahead of any cyber threats.
Our security ratings give a calculated assessment of an organisation’s effectiveness on all aspects of security performance and to protect data. Cybersecurity ratings draw upon a range of data to analyse and inform, ultimately enabling organisations to objectively review and act upon its processes and the security measures it has in place. What’s more, the ratings also help to identify challenges and opportunities to make improvements. Our cybersecurity risk ratings enable better management of an organisation’s cyber risk, such as:
– Insight into risks associated with third or fourth parties and supply chain relationships. When a security rating is in place, it can significantly aid the effective management of cyber risk from external parties.
– An up-to-date rating allows for better transparency to assist insurance underwriters in the assessment, calculation and risk management of security process and performance.
– Cybersecurity due diligence is hugely important during periods of business growth, including the acquisition of or investment in a company. Organisations must be able to access enhanced information and continually review any investment; security ratings enable this.
– Security ratings help governments to gain better insight and understanding into Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), ultimately enabling better management of their cyber security performance.
What’s more, security ratings also aid the ongoing management of an organisation’s internal cyber activity including risk and compliance.
In this instance, security ratings allow for:
– Assessments of internal security activity to be carried out on a rolling basis, helping to provide information and clarity to a range of stakeholders.
– Industry-wide benchmarking, including peer to peer and competitor.
– Greater customer confidence in the organisation’s digital presence and activities. This higher level of confidence touches others with vested interest including third parties, stakeholders and industry regulators.
More about RiskXchange
RiskXchange is an information security technology company, that helps companies of all sizes fight the threat of cyber threats by providing instant risk ratings for any company across the globe. RiskXchange was founded and is led by recognised experts within the security industry, who have held leading roles within companies such as IBM Security.
Find out more here.