What Is a Security Rating?

A security or cybersecurity rating is an objective, quantifiable, and factual analysis of a network’s security to understand its strengths and weaknesses. To assess a network’s rating, the assessors take the role of hackers to spot loopholes within a system. They launch attacks to determine if a system can resist them and mitigate damages.

Think of it as the grades students get in school. The higher they are, the better the learners’ performance is. In organizations’ case, the higher their ratings are, the better they can protect against cyber attacks.

Read More about a Security Rating

The ratings are computed based on several factors, which we’ll discuss in greater detail below.

How Are Security Ratings Calculated?

An organization’s rating reflects its resilience to cyber threats. It is calculated based on multiple attack vector categories and represented as a score ranging from 0 to 950.

What Attack Vector Categories Are Examined?

Computing a company’s cybersecurity rating requires examining its attack surface, vetting its messaging tools, determining the state of its web protocols, particularly Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), documenting its attack history, and compiling an inventory of its vulnerabilities.

Examine the Attack Surface

The attack surface is the sum of all the entry points, avenues, and vulnerabilities threat actors can leverage to compromise a network. While many would like to believe their systems are attack-proof, that just isn’t the case. Every device, application, or other resource connected to its network must be closely examined for security gaps—any vulnerability and misconfiguration threat actors can abuse.

Vet Messaging Tools

Attackers won’t stop until they get what they want, including intercepting messages sent to or coming from their target network. They deploy man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks, for instance, to listen to communications. That’s why all the messaging tools an organization uses need to be checked for security.

Determine TLS and SSL Usage

TLS protects the privacy of communications between websites and their servers online via encryption. It’s an advanced form of SSL. Organizations are mandated to protect all their network resources by using encryption protocols. Security ratings include scanning for the use of these protocols to ensure they can protect against threats.

Document Attack History

Organizations have to keep their reputations intact, which means they can’t succumb to any attack. The more resilient they are to cyber threats, the better. The more successful attacks against them, the lower their rating gets.

Compile a Vulnerability Inventory

The more gaps in a network, the less secure it is. But security teams can’t protect against threats if they don’t know where they can come from. Asking assessors to determine organizations’ ratings requires scouring for all exploitable weaknesses.

What Are Security Ratings Used For?

The ratings play a part in various processes. We’ll tackle each below.

Third-party risk management (TPRM): They can help companies assess how risky doing business with any third party is. As such, they can help keep supply chain attacks at bay. They can also ease cyber insurance underwriting, business acquisition, and regulatory compliance.

Cybersecurity performance management: Organizations that aren’t considered secure can’t win and retain customers. They can’t convince key stakeholders and investors they’re worth the money, too. If they fail to convince everyone of their security, they will certainly lose to their industry peers and competitors. They may also end up getting sued for noncompliance with regulations.

Cyber risk appetite definition: A company’s cyber risk appetite refers to the degree of risk it is willing to accept to meet its business objectives. The ratings offer a quantitative means to measure a vendor’s cybersecurity posture, hastening and easing the decision-making process.

What Are the Benefits of Having a High Security Rating ?

The higher an organization’s cybersecurity rating is, that is the closer to 950, the more trustworthy and worth investing in it is. Here are some of the advantages a high rating brings.

Greater User Trust and Credibility

Security ratings are like credit ratings. The higher a company’s score, the more credible it is. As such, security-conscious users will have little or no worries about patronizing it once they see good ratings. That is critical to establishing trust because consumers understand the company has strong measures in place to earn such a score.

Continuous Security Improvement

Like everything else in the realm of cybersecurity, the ratings aren’t definite. While a network may have a high rating when it was assessed. That may not hold true in the future if the security team becomes complacent. But should the team perform security assessments periodically, the organization can detect and protect against threats as they emerge.

Data Privacy

Information is currency in the digital age. Every cyber attacker will always try to obtain sensitive data, and their owners or managers may fail to secure it. While the ratings don’t secure data automatically, they do present insights companies need to do so. How?

Securing an organization’s entire attack surface, for instance, can help ensure intruders won’t get to the data it holds.

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As a best practice, organizations hire service providers to determine their scores. Why? A third party will provide a more credible rating than if companies assess their network.

Key Takeaways

A security or cybersecurity rating is an objective, quantifiable, and factual analysis of a network’s security to understand its strengths and weaknesses.
It is a score third parties usually provide that ranges from 0 to 950. The higher the score is, the better.
The ratings play a crucial role in TPRM, cybersecurity performance management, and cyber risk appetite definition.
High ratings increases customer trust, enables continuous security improvement, and ensures data privacy.