How to Benchmark Your Cybersecurity Performance
Cybersecurity is a set of practices designed to protect the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of information and technology systems. It involves managing the risk of digital attacks and breaches to ensure that sensitive information isn’t compromised or lost, whether by malware erasing files, attackers hacking into a system and stealing data, or unauthorized access to customer credit card information.
With a rapid pace of change in the industry, keeping up with cybersecurity is challenging. Technologies that were cutting edge five years ago may be obsolete today. Additionally, the speed of cyberattacks increases the likelihood that sensitive data will be compromised by a malicious actor.
To keep up, organizations need to prioritize their security spending and implement new capabilities based on the threats they face. To do so, they need to use metrics that allow them to gauge their cybersecurity performance in relation to other companies. This process is known as benchmarking and can be accomplished through a variety of methods, such as participating in peer networking forums or meeting online with other companies who have similar concerns.
A common cybersecurity metric is to develop a risk assessment report. This is a high-level document that describes each threat’s risk, impact, likelihood of occurrence, and control recommendations. This is a qualitative method that requires significant time and effort to complete, but it can help businesses align their budgets with the threats they face. It can also help them determine their current capabilities and establish a target state for their future cybersecurity posture.