Cyber Security Analysis

Managing risk with a cyber security analysis

Cyber security analysis is an indispensable tool for managing security performance and third-party risk. IT environments today are constantly expanding to encompass cloud services, BYOD devices, and an increasingly hybrid workforce. This evolution of the traditional IT environment offers unprecedented opportunities for forward-thinking organizations, but it introduces many new risks as well. A growing digital footprint inevitably means a larger attack surface, making it harder for security teams to manage risk and mitigate threats.

A superior cyber security analysis enables security leaders to mitigate risk by providing greater visibility into an organization’s security performance and the security posture of third-party vendors. With solutions that enable continuous monitoring, security teams respond more quickly to an evolving threat landscape and shifting levels of risk.

Bitsight provides cyber security analysis solutions that enable risk and security teams to make better, faster decisions about cyber risk within their organization and their supply chain.

The essentials of cyber security analysis

When performing a cyber security analysis, security teams better prioritize resources and address security risks when they know which metrics have the greatest correlation to breach.

A 2022 study by the Marsh McLennan Cyber Risk Analytics Center concluded that poor performance in several areas significantly increases an organization’s risk of experiencing a cyber security event, while solid performance implies a lower risk of incident. These areas include metrics such as:

• Patching cadence – how diligently an organization applies patches that remediate software vulnerabilities.
• Desktop software – whether browser and operating system versions are kept up-to-date across all devices.
• Potentially exploited systems – the number of devices running malicious software or unwanted programs.
• Mobile software – whether the software on cell phones and tablets is updated.
• Botnet infections – the number of devices observed serving as bots or participating in botnets.
• Insecure systems – the number of endpoints communicating with an unintended destination.
• User behavior – how often employees engage in potentially risky behavior such as sharing files over peer-to-peer networks.
• TLS/SSL configurations – whether security encryption software is correctly configured and utilizes robust encryption protocols.
• Open ports – which port numbers and services are exposed to the internet.
• Spam propagation – whether an organization is infected with malware that sends spam.

In addition to these specific metrics, the study found that security and risk teams can rely on Bitsight Security Ratings as an overall measurement of an organization’s cyber security performance.

Bitsight Ratings enable cyber security analysis

Bitsight is trusted by the world’s largest organizations to achieve digital resilience by gaining greater visibility into their security performance and the security posture of third-party vendors.

Bitsight Security Ratings are generated from objective, verifiable information about a company’s security performance. Bitsight’s daily ratings provide a data-driven, dynamic, quantitative measurement of an organization’s overall security posture as well as specifics about individual risk vectors such as those identified by Marsh McLennan.

Bitsight draws data from over 100 sources to illuminate 23 key risk vectors – twice as many as competing security rating organizations. Bitsight also provides the most accurate network assets map and manages the largest botnet sinkholing infrastructure, providing deeper visibility into compromised systems. With Bitsight, organizations can also access 12 months of historical data to identify trends and understand risk more easily.

Because Bitsight Security Ratings are updated daily, they support cyber security analysis and continuous monitoring with near real-time data. A Bitsight study, independently verified by Air Worldwide and IHS Markit, verified that Bitsight Security Ratings correlate with the risk of a data breach. According to the study’s findings, for example, companies with a Bitsight rating of 500 or lower are nearly 5 times more likely to experience a breach than those with a rating of 700 or more.

Analyzing security and risk with Bitsight solutions

From enhancing reputational risk management to improving software supply chain security, Bitsight enables organizations to achieve measurable objectives around mitigating risk. Bitsight offers several solutions that security teams rely on for cyber security analyses.

• Bitsight for Security Performance Management enables organizations to assess internal security performance over time. This solution for cyber security analysis helps security teams benchmark against peers and competitors, forecast future performance, set realistic goals, and track progress with data based on an external view of an organization’s network.
• Bitsight for Third-Party Risk Management empowers teams to continually assess and monitor cyber risk throughout a third-party ecosystem. With Bitsight’s vendor risk monitoring solutions, teams increase vendor due diligence and collaborate with vendors to quickly remediate security issues throughout the supply chain.
• Bitsight Attack Surface Analytics delivers visibility into the complete digital ecosystem and the risks associated with each digital asset. With Bitsight, security teams can manage and reduce the attack surface by discovering hidden assets and cloud instances, visualizing areas of disproportionate risk, and deploying security controls to mitigate them.
• Bitsight Financial Quantification for Enterprise Cyber Risk makes cyber risk quantification accessible, available, and actionable for everyone. This cyber security analysis tool provides a quick, efficient, and repeatable assessment of financial exposure related to cyber risk.

Why Bitsight?

The most widely adopted security ratings platform

Founded in 2011, Bitsight has pioneered the security ratings market and is trusted today by some of the world’s largest organizations. Bitsight’s 3,000 customers worldwide include 20% of Fortune 500 companies and 120 government institutions across 30 countries. Bitsight is also the choice of 4 of the top 5 investment banks and all 4 of the Big 4 accounting firms.

Greater visibility

Bitsight’s proprietary data set provides Security Ratings that are objective, verifiable, and actionable. Drawing data from over 120 sources, Bitsight gives customers unprecedented visibility into risk within an organization’s network and supply chain.

Prioritization & context

Bitsight calculates the importance of data points in a more diversified way to ensure that critical assets are ranked higher.

A robust community of cyber risk professionals

Bitsight is the most widely used security ratings platform across all industries, with 3,000 Bitsight customers sharing security ratings with more than 170,000 third-party organizations.