Cyber risk scores are beneficial mediums which can determine and effectively communicate the current security posture of an organization. The risk score can be gauged from an internal network or external network perspective and for services such as web applications, wireless, and physical security. If your organization is looking to determine the effectiveness of your security controls, severity of vulnerabilities, and exposed assets then a cyber risk score card is an excellent tool to utilize.
Why should an organization utilize a cyber risk rating?
Cyber risk ratings prioritize which assets should be addressed first and determines the severity and inherited risks of those assets. Foresite utilizes a risk matrix from critical, high, medium, and low to determine which assets pose the most risks. Knowing your current risk rating provides you with a guide for remediating vulnerabilities and improving your overall security posture. Additionally, the rating provides an executive summary which helps communicate the overall risk rating to a less technical audience.
There are many overall risk rating sources that an organization may choose to understand risks. Such sources include:
Simplifying the risk scoring process
Each risk rating source has their own methodologies to determine risks and knowing which risk rating to choose can be quite puzzling, this is where Foresite Cybersecurity can help. Foresite security assessments take the approach of emulating the attacker and attempting to exploit many of the above vulnerabilities to gain a better understanding of the actual security posture of the network.
The process begins with information gathering and enumeration to determine vulnerabilities within your organization. From here, the cyber security consultant will begin exploiting found vulnerabilities with the goal of attaining confidential information, control of an application or network, and security gaps.
What can affect your risk score?
Foresite considers several factors when assigning a vulnerability rating, including:
- Whether a vulnerability leads to partial or full system compromise
- Whether it can be part of an attack chain which amplifies the total impact
- What user level privileges are required for exploitation
- Whether specific conditions or non-default configurations are required
- The level of difficulty and resources required to conduct a successful attack
- Whether exploit code has been published
- Whether mitigating controls are in place
- Whether user interaction is required
- Whether the affected device is internet facing
- The sensitivity of the data stored on the vulnerable host
- How critical the vulnerable device is to business operations
Reporting risk scoring results
The consultant will then generate a detailed report of their findings including any vulnerabilities found along with exploitation notes. The report provides an overall security risk to an organization along with short-term and long-term goals to prioritize.
The report, in addition to the overall risk rating, has proved useful as it provides an overview and a 3rd party, unbiased assessment of the current cyber strength of your organization. If you would like to gain a further insight into your current cyber risk, contact us to learn more about how Foresite can help.
Video: Cyber Risk Scoring Overview
Matthew Zellner
Experienced professional with prime knowledge in Enterprise System Administration, Networking, Vulnerability & Risk Reduction, Threat Intelligence, and Cyber Security. Through passion and persistence, Matthew has been dedicated to achieving excellence in the work that he performs using skills and experience to help inspire and educate others to meet and surpass their goals.
